Breast Health: Early Detection and Screening

Contents: About Breast Health: Early Detection and Screening Additional Online Resources Related Topics

About Breast Health: Early Detection and Screening

It is not yet known how to prevent breast cancer, or even what causes it. The key is finding breast cancer early, and the key to early detection is screening. Below are the American Cancer Society Guidelines for breast cancer detection. Talk with your primary care provider about these guidelines and your personal breast health.

Breast Self-Exam (BSE)	Age 20+ : Monthly
Clinical Breast Exam	Age 20-40: Every 3 years Age 40+: Yearly
Screening Mammogram	Age 40+ : Yearly

For more information about early detection and screening, call Health*Matters at (510) 643-4646.

Breast Self-Exam (BSE)

A breast self-exam is one of three tests recommended by the American Cancer Society to help detect breast cancer in its earliest stages. We highly encourage women to learn how to correctly perform BSE. For hands-on instruction and information about BSE, the Alta Bates Comprehensive Breast Center provides MammaCare instruction, a private 90-minute session with a qualified health practitioner. Also check out other online resources.

Clinical Breast Exam

A clinical breast exam is performed by a trained medical professional, and includes inspection and palpitation (feeling) of the entire breast area, the area under the arms, and the lymph node area above and below the collarbones. Talk with your clinician about scheduling your clinical breast exams.

Screening Mammograms

A mammogram is an x-ray picture of the breast. It can find breast cancer that is too small for you, your doctor, or nurse to feel. For more information about screening mammograms, please check see online resources.

Genetic Testing & Counseling

For information and counseling about genetic testing and breast cancer, as well as a link to a directory of cancer genetic professionals who provide services related to cancer genetic risk assessment, counseling, and testing, please see online resources.

Additional Online Resources

For Breast Self-Exam

• Alta Bates Comprehensive Breast Center
  http://www.abccc.com/services/breast.html
• Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization
  http://www.y-me.org/

For Screening Mammograms

• National Cancer Institute
  http://cancer.gov/
• The Northern California Cancer Center for the online version of the Bay Area Breast Cancer Resource Guide, a comprehensive directory of breast cancer and breast health services, including free mammograms.

For Genetic Testing

• National Cancer Institute
  http://cancer.gov/
• UCSF Cancer Risk Program
  http://cancer.ucsf.edu/