Screenings, risk assessments key to detecting breast cancer early
Dr. Janette Gomez, a breast surgical oncologist at Allegheny Health Network, encourages patients to advocate for themselves amid upward trends of younger women being diagnosed with breast cancer.
About 1 in 8 women, or 1 in 700 men, are diagnosed with the disease, Gomez said.
The risk climbs with age, Gomez said, but risk assessments can help patients and their doctors detect breast cancer early. The American College of Radiology advises that women over age 25 undergo risk assessment. Previously, the recommended age was 30.
Gomez works at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh and also heads AHN’s High Risk Breast Cancer Clinic.
“It does feel like we’re seeing more and more younger women being diagnosed,” Gomez said. “One of the biggest things we need to make sure is that it’s not a genetic mutation that could have contributed to (a diagnosis).”
A breast cancer risk assessment looks at factors like genetic mutations, family history and age.
“It’s important with the trends we’re seeing,” Gomez said. “The biggest thing to be aware of family history.”
Risk assessments also can help inform doctors if mammograms — which are recommended after age 40 — are needed earlier, or whether any additional imaging, ultrasounds or MRI are necessitated.
“Our goal is to hopefully find things sooner at earlier ages and stages,” Gomez said.
Gomez also advises individuals to perform breast self-exams.
“If you feel something, say something,” she said.
“Advocate for yourself,” she said. “I’ve seen cases of patients who go in because they feel a lump, who have been told, ‘Oh, it’s probably nothing.’ Most of the time, it’s nothing when you’re young. But sometimes, it is something.”
According to Gomez, a number of factors can contribute to an increased risk of developing breast cancer.
“There are those that we can control and those out of our control,” she said. “Out of our control we have family history, age of first period, age of menopause … age of first pregnancy.”
Gomez said other factors include weight, diet, exercise, alcohol consumption and tobacco use.
“There’s not a particular ethnicity at higher risk,” she said. “But we’ve seen Black women are more likely to (develop) aggressive, advanced stage breast cancer and more likely to pass from the disease … it’s important to do screenings and increase awareness and talk about (breast cancer).”
Within the past two decades, Gomez said the field has made strides in early detection and treatments.
“We’ve come a long way,” she said. “Survival rates are very high, but I think now the next step is going further in detecting cancer earlier.”
Gomez said she sometimes hears that patients hesitate to get mammograms due to fear around radiation exposure or because the procedure is uncomfortable.
“With a mammogram, radiation is very minimal,” she said, noting that the exposure is lower than radiation exposure from taking a flight.
“Some women are afraid of getting a mammogram, but it’s something that’s brief and has a profound impact,” she said.
When asked what advice she would have to someone recently diagnosed with the disease, Gomez reiterated that a support system outside of the hospital is essential, and that she would tell all patients that the field has made significant progress from years past.
“It’s a very scary thing that has a big impact on someone’s life,” she said. “With breast cancer, thankfully it is, for the most part, very curable and treatable. I would say it’s important to refocus and focus on the fact that this is treatable. This is curable.”
“Our treatments have come such a long way,” she said. “Even women with advanced breast cancer are living much longer than they used to.”
“If you have a support system, lean on it,” she said. “This isn’t something you go through alone. If you have a family, or if you have friends, lean on them — now is the time.”
