Most women are reluctant to have an annual mammogram or breast screening and there are many reasons for this, including some myths that should be scrapped from the female mind. Let’s look at a few of them, so you don’t decide to skip your breast screening this year.
1. Imaging Radiation Causes Cancer
Many women are concerned that screening may cause breast cancer due to radiation exposure. However, the risk of dying from breast cancer is much greater than the theoretical risk of the radiation from a mammogram causing cancer. One is a real risk – one in eight women will develop this disease – the other is a theoretical risk.
2. Finding a Lump in Your Breast Means You Have Breast Cancer
This is a common belief, but it is actually false – most breast lumps are benign. While a lump in your breast may be a sign of cancer, it may also be a sign of something else, such as a cyst, a lipoma (benign tumour), or non-cancerous changes in the breast tissue causing a lump.
3. If You Don’t Have Any Symptoms or Lumps, You Don’t Have Breast Cancer
Many women who never had any symptoms, including lumps, are diagnosed with breast cancer. This is why an annual breast screening is so vital. Some cancerous tumours are so minute that they can’t be detected with a physical examination.
4. An Injury to the Breast Can Cause Breast Cancer
The breasts can sustain an injury through contact sports, a fall, or a blow during a car accident. These injuries can cause bruising and bleeding, leading to a hematoma, which usually heal on their own.
Some injuries do cause lumps in the breast, but these lumps are often due to fat necrosis – scarring of dead or injured fatty tissue in the breast.
Sometimes, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after an injury. When the woman receives treatment for the injury, the lump is suddenly discovered and thought to have been caused by the injury. In fact, the injury didn’t cause the lump; it merely revealed a lump that had gone unnoticed.
5. Mammograms Are Always Painful
Granted, traditional flat compression systems are painful for many women, but the technology has advanced, and new mammography uses comfort technology that has greatly improved the experience for many women.
6. Young Women in Their 20s and 30s Don’t Need Mammograms
While it’s true that the risk of developing breast cancer increases with age, women in their 20s and 30s can and do also get breast cancer. It is rare for young women to get breast cancer, but it is the most common cancer among women younger than 39. And certain kinds of breast cancer are on the rise among young women. At the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), about 16 to 20% of incidences of breast cancer occur in women 40 years and under. Young women in their 20s are encouraged to do regular self-examinations to build breast awareness.
7. If You Do Regular Breast Self-Examinations, Mammograms Are Unnecessary
Research shows that regular self-examinations don’t prevent breast cancer incidents. The only way to reduce the number of breast cancer deaths is by undergoing regular mammograms.
8. Women with Large Breasts Are More Likely to Develop Breast Cancer
Breast size is not a risk factor for breast cancer. Research has not found any direct link between breast size and breast cancer. Physical factors that do increase the risk of breast cancer are obesity and breast density.
9. Women with a Family History of Breast Cancer Are Likely To Develop Breast Cancer
The truth is that most women who develop breast cancer don’t have a family history of the disease – only about 5-10% of women with breast cancer have a family history of it.
While these women won’t necessarily develop breast cancer, they are at a higher risk, especially those with a first-degree relative who developed the disease. A first-degree relative would be a mother, daughter or sister, and the risk almost doubles in such cases. In this case, you should be especially vigilant and start breast screenings early.
10. Men Don’t Get Breast Cancer
Not only do men get breast cancer, but the mortality rate for men with breast cancer is 19% higher than for women. Fewer men get breast cancer, but a larger proportion of them die from the disease. This is the result of lower awareness of breast cancer incidence among men.
Breast cancer in men usually presents as a hard lump underneath the nipple and areola. It’s important for men to also do a breast self-exam from time to time.
11. Women Who Are Carriers of Cancer-Associated Mutations Are More Likely To Die Of Their Tumours than Women Who Don’t Have the Mutations
Research results show that Women who have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation are not more likely to die of their tumours than those who don’t have the mutation. Research has actually found that women with inherited mutations have the same or better outcomes – they are less likely to die of their cancer than women without these mutations. Also, not every woman who has these gene mutations will get breast cancer or ovarian cancer.
Curious to learn more? Check out this article by Radlink on why breast screening mammogram is important for early breast cancer detection, as well as other valuable information such as when is an MRI breast recommended.
