Andrea Ivory knew she was fortunate when she survived breast cancer due to early detection. That made her think of all the women without health insurance who put off getting mammograms and breast exams.

She didn’t just think about it. Andrea started the Florida Breast Health Initiative. Since 2006, Andrea and her team of volunteers have knocked on the doors of around 20,000 homes. And they’ve helped provide more than 500 mammograms to Miami area residents.

Andrea and the Florida Breast Health Initiative volunteers spread the word that “Early detection is the best protection.” They devote the first three Saturdays of each …read more

Yearly mammograms for breast cancer survivors? Just thinking of the procedure make me cringe. Though I cannot imagine, women must dread going for mammograms.
However, yearly mammograms protect breast cancer survivors: according to a study in the July 20, 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, older women who get yearly mammograms after treatment of early-stage breast cancer are less likely to die from breast cancer.
According to Rebecca Silliman, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine and public health at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health:
“An important finding of this study is that not all older women who are …read more

That’s right. Mayo Clinic Cancer Center researchers are not recommending mammograms to men even if they are showing breast symptoms including enlarged or painful breast tissue: a condition called gynecomastia (male breast).
According to Stephanie Hines, M.D., of Mayo’s Multidisciplinary Breast Clinic and Breast Cancer Program in Jacksonville, Florida:
“Mammography is being performed with increasing frequency in men with breast symptoms, but we found that breast cancer in men can be felt as a firm, discrete mass on a physical exam, or seen as changes in the skin or nipple.
Male breast cancer is exceedingly rare — fewer than 2,000 men in the …read more

Deciding whether to get a regular mammogram?
A new review of studies offers both the good and the bad news to women facing such a decision.
The good news being that screening mammography does reduce breast cancer mortality and the bad news is that women in a screened population are 30 percent more likely to be diagnosed and treated for a cancer that, in the absence of screening, would never have posed a threat to their health.
Lead author Peter Gøtzsche, M.D., director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre (Copenhagen, Denmark) said:
“It is likely that screening mammography reduces breast cancer mortality, but the other …read more