The goal of the breast cancer screening is to discover cancer before symptoms arise. Discovering breast cancer at early stages greatly increases the survival rate of the patient. The recommended guidelines are as follows:
- Self Breast Examination: Starting at age 20, women should check their breasts themselves for lumps on a monthly basis.
- Mammogram: At age 35, a baseline mammogram should be taken. Women over the age of 40 should have a screening mammogram once a year. Mammogram uses X-ray to find lumps in your breast. The importance of screening mammogram comes from the fact that it is able to detect lumps not detectable by other methods of examination.
If an abnormality is detected with physical examination or mammogram, additional imaging tests such as diagnostic mammogram, ultrasound, or MRI may be done on the breast. If the presence of tumor is suspected from the imaging tests, a breast biopsy, where tissues are taken from the breast to test for the presence of cancer, will be performed to conclusively determine if cancer is present, and if so, what stage is the cancer at.
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