BREAST CANCER: DENSE BREAST TISSUE, MICROCALCIFICATIONS, GENETIC SCREENING

[N'Zinga Shani]

OCTOBER IS BREAST CANCER EDUCATION AND AWARENESS MONTH. 

OneWorld Progressive Institute provides educational information and videos for the benefit of the community. Please check out the short video segments linked in this blog, and please SHARE this blog with others; men and women.  Find much more information at:  www.oneworldpi.org/  Visit our Face Book page at: http://goo.gl/8v19VB

This first post is about Dense Breast Tissue and Microcalcifications

When Scheduling A Mammogram, Ask Your Provider if the Facility Offers 3-D or Digital Mammography. This is considered a more definitive diagnostic tool.
• Having Dense Breasts can make mammograms more difficult to interpret. This doesn't mean women with Dense Breast Tissue should avoid having mammogram; they also detect other breast abnormalities.
• Breast tissue is composed of fatty (non-dense) tissue and connective (dense) tissue. Women with dense breasts have more connective tissue than fatty tissue. About half of women undergoing mammograms have dense breasts.
• Dense Breast Tissue Appears as a Solid White Area on a mammogram. Fat Appears as a Dark Area. Mammogram X-rays do not penetrate — or "see through" — dense tissues as well as they do through fat. So, in women with dense breasts, mammograms may be more difficult to interpret.
• Studies have shown that Digital Mammography and a breast-imaging test called 3-D Mammography (breast Tomosynthesis) may provide an improved way of seeing through dense breast tissue.
• A 3-D mammogram combines multiple low-dose mammogram images to create a 3-D image of the breast. Though not available everywhere, 3-D mammography is becoming more common.

¨Short video     https://youtu.be/0YhpIB-x8kQ

HEALTH LITERACY #2: THE ROLE OF FAMILY HISTORY IN BREAST CANCER

Yale's (former) Director of Cancer Genetic Screening, Counseling & Testing, joins OneWorld Progressive Institute's, N'Zinga Shäni, to define exactly what Cancer Genetic Screening, Counseling and Testing means and discuss the important implications. The age of diagnosis is very important, and whether it is Colorectal, Breast, Ovarian, etc. How does genetic cancer affect men? What organ is most affected? What is the role of P53 in genetic cancer? Why don't we hear more about P53 and genetic testing?

Thanks to work done by the National ACLU and many others, including people in CT, Myriad Genetics No Longer Owns the Patent on BRCA1 & BRCA2. The company should NEVER have been given Patents on these genes.  Watch the short video linked below; please share it.

https://youtu.be/UDNqhvWf0aM

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/business/myriad-genetics-ending-patent-dispute-on-breast-cancer-risk-testing.html

[N'Zinga Shani]

We have nothing to lose by arming ourselves with good information.  OneWorld invites you to read the short blog post and watch the two short very informative videos linked in the post.  Please SHARE this information with others.  Thank you.

N'Zinga Shäni

www.oneworldpi.org/