1.4 mil. women should get MRI, not just mammogram

http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/316029,CST-NWS-mam28.article

March 28, 2007
BY MIKE STOBBE

ATLANTA -- Up to 1.4 million U.S. women -- those with a high risk of developing breast cancer -- should get annual MRIs as well as mammograms, the American Cancer Society says.

The cancer society's new guidelines are the first to recommend MRI for screening women who show no signs of cancer.

The guidelines are directed at symptomless women age 30 and older who have a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, those who were treated for Hodgkin's disease, or those with a strong family history of the disease, such as women with two or more close relatives who had breast or ovarian cancer or who have a close relative who developed breast cancer before age 50. snip

Doctors usually screen for breast cancer using mammography, an X-ray technique that can spot dense masses like tumors.

But MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, makes more detailed images with a magnet and radio waves.

I wonder if insurance will pay for an MRI? If not - the cost is likely about $3,000 I bet! :mad:

:kick:

If 1.4 million people go do this, it will cost.

and unemployment in my early forties. Never saw a doctor during that time. Found out a year later that there was a free program in my state for an annual mammogram, but I never heard about it. Fortunately no health crises occurred. But the thing is, I was certainly looking for anything free- this was evidently available but there was no money to publicize it in any way so there were probably a lot of people who could have used it but never did.

A friend of mine died of ovarian cancer at age 42. She developed the symptoms during a long period without health insurance, and by the time she saw a doctor it was metastatic and she died two months later. She died of no health insurance.

utter incompetence.

Problem is, not everyone has those types of breasts.

I am one of them!

Something that was "state of the art" 20 years ago might not be the same today.