October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and there is no better time to remind women to get mammograms.
One in eight women will develop invasive breast cancer. With that in mind, when is the best time to begin screening for breast cancer?
"Women should start their mammograms from the age of 40. The original recommendation was a base line at 35 and then regular screening from 40 on annually," says Castle mammographer Lori Kamikawa.
Any medical procedure can be intimidating. We asked Kamikawa about the mammogram process.
"The mammogram itself usually takes on average 15 to 20 minutes. The compression part, the uncomfortable part, really lasts just a few seconds at a time. We take four pictures so four little sessions of uncomfortableness," she says.
Kamikawa said the results of the mammogram are studied and a letter detailing the findings will be sent out by mail to the patient the next day. That's for a screening mammogram - - but there is also something called a diagnostic mammogram which is more intensive and could take longer than a screening mammogram. There have been advances in mammography. Because of digital technology, it doesn't take as long for results to be revealed.
"Digital is filmless. There's no film involved. Archive is a lot easier, the portability. We're a very mobile society. If the woman moves away, we can send them with a CD so they can take their mammograms where ever they go," she says.
After a mammogram, between ten and twenty percent of women get called back for a diagnostic mammogram.
"Of that group 10 to 20 percent are sent to biopsy and of that group only 10 to 20 percent actually come out positive for breast cancer, a very small number, but you have to go through that line," Kamikawa says.
