LOVE/HATE
I Hate Mammograms
My search for a better way to detect breast cancer
I parted my hospital robe and carefully propped my right breast onto a chilly shelf, pressing my ribs against the mammography machine. I inhaled slowly, trying to relax. As the plates pressed down, my breath stopped, and my eyes watered.
We would never do this to a man’s balls, I thought, once the tortilla press released my breast. We can send men to the moon, but we can’t create a better way to find breast cancer?
Ask any radiologist and they will tell you that the mammogram is the gold standard for detecting breast cancer. That’s largely because of the volume of randomized control trial data in support of mammography’s effectiveness, including over the long-term, says Dr. Bonnie Joe, chief of breast imaging at the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California, San Francisco. “The mammogram is the only one proven, in these trials, to save lives from cancer.”
It’s also because mammography can detect calcifications in the breast, a potential sign of cancer. “To compete with mammography is almost impossible, because it works so well,” says Dr. Avice O’Connell, professor of imaging sciences and director of women’s imaging at the University of Rochester.
