How to Detect Breast Cancer with Mammograms in Kentuckiana

Baptist Health Floyd: How to Detect Breast Cancer with Mammograms

Breast cancer can be effectively treated if detected early. Learn how radiologists detect breast cancer with mammograms at Baptist Health Floyd.

How to Detect Breast Cancer with Mammograms in Kentuckiana HealthTalks Transcript

Laura Barkley, MD, Diagnostic Radiology:
Mammograms are the best tests that we have to detect breast cancer, and it’s really the only proven test that’s been shown to decrease death rates from breast cancer.
It’s best to try to find a breast cancer as early as possible because it means that the treatment needed for the breast cancer is less invasive. Mastectomy rates are lower. Less chemotherapy and radiation therapy may be needed depending on a specific case.

So, it is extremely important for women to get their yearly mammograms starting when they’re 40 years old. After a woman has her mammogram, a radiologist reads the mammogram and decides what to do. Ten percent of the time, a woman needs to come back for additional testing. Two percent of the 10% of women will need to have a biopsy, but less than 1 out of 100 women who has a screening mammogram ends up having breast cancer.

I am a fellowship-trained breast imager. So, after my four years of medical school and five years of radiology residency, I did a one-year fellowship specialized in breast imaging, where basically I spent the whole year reading mammograms, doing breast ultrasounds, breast MRIs, and image-guided breast procedures, like biopsies.

Baptist Health is a great facility to have your mammogram done. The technologists are very experienced and very caring toward the patients, and the radiologists interpreting the mammogram are very experienced as well.