A Game-Changing Ultrasound for Dense Breasts & Implants
Leave a Comment
During my many years as a thermographer, I’ve learned that a great majority of women who seek out thermography have dense breasts. Many have had years of mammograms and/or biopsies with benign results, and all of them want to avoid radiation and compression.
In fact, more than 40% of women have dense breast tissue. If a woman relies on anatomical screenings of mammography and ultrasound, her chances of getting breast cancer are around 70%. For women with dense breasts and/or breast implants this has always been a problem, but this is still the standard of screening.
The Disadvantages of Mammography for Dense Breast Tissue
A mammogram uses radiation and finds a tumor after it has been in state of angioneogenesis, or producing heat as cells are replicating. So, mammograms find tumors after they have become large enough to be seen on anatomical studies (mammogram, ultrasound or MRI).
This means that by the time a mammogram finds breast cancer, it has been in the stages of “cells on fire” for anywhere from 7 to 10 years. This is NOT prevention!
Mammography is also a highly ineffective examination for women with dense breasts, with a sensitivity between 28% and 50%.
Tumors are even harder to detect, because both a tumor and the connective tissue of dense breasts appear white on a mammogram. To find a tumor on a mammogram with dense breast tissue is like looking for a snowball in a snowstorm!
Thermography is beneficial because it picks up a tumor as heat. This gives you time to make lifestyle changes and explore early intervention—before a tumor is big enough to appear on an anatomical study.
In a 2008 study by The American Breast Surgeon Department of Surgery at the New York Presbyterian Hospital–Cornell, researchers concluded that thermography was highly beneficial for women with dense breast tissue.
So why don’t doctors give us the option of thermography? They still recommend mammograms, despite them being an ineffective screening method for dense breasts and delivering more cumulative and potentially cancer-causing radiation.
Adding the Power of AWBUS to Thermography
Women with dense breasts who screen with thermography are recommended to follow up with an ultrasound. Thermography is an adjunct to an anatomical screening. While the ultrasound is not that effective for dense breasts, a new anatomical technology is now available to improve the detection of cancer in women with dense breasts and implants.
AWBUS (Automated Whole Breast Ultrasound Screenings) is a supplementary ultrasound examination of both breasts that can find small cancers that mammography may miss. AWBUS can increase confidence in your diagnoses. When done in conjunction with a thermogram, it can find more cancers in women with dense breasts than by mammography or standard ultrasound alone.
Watch this TEDx Talk with Dr. Kelly who explains:
3D tomosynthesis is also recommended for women with a breast density grade of 2-3. 3D tomosynthesis improves the visualization of calcifications and small cancers that can be hidden by overlapping tissue. Yet it delivers 38% more ionizing radiation than a standard mammogram. Again, Ionizing radiation is the most dangerous radiation. Radiation is cumulative and can be a risk factor for creating cancer.
The combination of AWBUS and thermography are environmentally safe, radiation free and provide early detection. This makes it a game changer in breast screening technology. AWBUS is most advantageous for women with a breast density grade of 3-4.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Please share this information with your women friends!
Note: At this time, there is no guarantee that your insurance company will cover an Automated Whole Breast Ultrasound. I recommend you contact your insurance company to find out if you are covered under your specific program.