Queens provides guidelines for breast cancer treatment

HONOLULU (KHON2) — With October being breast cancer awareness month, KHON2 wanted to take some time to talk about screening guidelines for women, as well as treatment options for those diagnosed with the disease.

On Monday, Oct. 23 on ask a specialist, we’re talking about what you need to know with Dr. Ashley Marumoto, breast surgical oncologist with the Queen’s Medical Center.

Dr. Marumoto will be talking about screening guidelines that will help you navigate diagnoses and prevention:

• Get your screenings annually starting at the age of 40.
• For women who are at a higher risk for breast cancer, it’s important to screen early.
• Screenings should continue annually at least until 75 years of age.
• 3D Tomosynthesis is a new type of digital x-ray mammogram which creates 2D and 3D-like pictures of the breasts to improve the ability of mammography to detect early breast cancers.
• Breast MRI selectively.

For women who’d like to have children, it is very important to have a regular screening schedule. Dr. Marumoto will talk about what women need to know when planning pregnancy around breast cancer:

• Pausing long-term cancer therapy.
• POSITIVE clinical trial.
• History of hormone positive cancer.
• Okay to pause treatment for two years.
• Many successful pregnancies.

Dr Marumoto will also talk about how this type of breast cancer can impact treatment options for a woman.

• Hormone positive, triple negative.
• HER2-positive types.
• Not all breast cancers require chemotherapy.
• Chemotherapy>Surgery vs. Surgery>Chemotherapy.
• Chemotherapy first adjust treatment.

To learn more about the services provided by Queen’s Cancer Center, you can click here. Choose “Services”. Then, click on “Cancer”.

It’s never too early to get on track with screenings. So, don’t let the fear of negative prospects deter you from catching cancer before it can proliferate.