Privacy Shutters

Folding privacy shutters. Dusty, but I believe each panel works. I have two of them. Email or text if you want them!

The Princess and the Pea for Breast Cancer

It’s that time of year again.  The time when you lie on the medical table - exposed, cold, and let’s face it, awkward.  As your OBGYN performs your clinical breast exam and cold fingers feel for the abnormal, you can’t help but wish there was a better way.  That’s why I was pretty excited yesterday when I read about a new detection device for breast cancer, assisting OBGYNs in this very exam.  

How will this change current care? Women (and doctors) can have concrete data on any lump and be confident that nothing is overlooked. Something like this might have caught my cancer two years before I was diagnosed, when I visited my OBGYN with an enlarged lymph node but was told it was nothing and would go away.

How does it work? The device’s 192 sensors glide over the breast to detect lesions or hardness under layers of soft breast tissue. (The company compares the product to the princess detecting a pea underneath multiple mattresses).  The sensor then generates a multi-dimensional image that documents shape, size, hardness, and location of any breast abnormality.  

The good:

• This device is useful for almost any woman, but especially for:
• women who aren’t 'of age' for mammograms
• women with denser breast tissue
• The device is
• FDA-cleared
• Covered by most major insurance companies
• Claims a higher detection rate than mammography
• Results are immediate - both you and the physician have access to the report immediately following the exam

The not so great:

• After perusing the company’s website for a bit, I was disappointed to have a lot of questions still unanswered.  
• When is it available?  
• How can I access the device?  
• What’s the cost? If the patient isn’t paying for it, who is, and will my doctor be incentivized to have one in his office?

The bottom line: A device in the exam room, at the first point of contact for cancer care, means:

1) earlier detection (my ‘lump’ was 5cm by the time I could feel it)

2) greater accuracy

3) concrete personal data

What can I do today? Check for a lump. Yes, right now. (Unless of course you’re in a public place and want to avoid several dirty looks).  You don’t have to be in the shower or close to that time of the month.  Then call your OBGYN’s office, share what you’ve learned, and ask when they plan on having this technology available in their office. They’ll either have the answer for you or they (and all of their patients) will be grateful you empowered them.