Obviously because it is October, there's so much, you know,
of a spotlight on breast cancer.
But I guess for everyone at home,
what would you like them to know during
this time or conversations they should be having?
So I think the most important thing to know about breast cancer is
that it's not something that you can wait until you feel it.
Um That's why we do mammograms.
That's why we emphasize mammograms for early detection.
But to go over, maybe what some of the symptoms are would be um you know,
feeling a lump in your breast, usually it's more of a hard lump,
not the type of lump that like you can move around.
Um There are some benign things like cysts that can
appear like that, that you can move around.
But cancer itself is usually more of a fixed um hard mass.
If you feel some uh lumps under your arm, that would be another thing.
Um Sometimes uh cancer can, breast cancer can pull some of the breast fibers in.
And so you might all of a sudden notice some dimpling
or, or the nipple might be retracted where,
you know, we're, we're not always looking at that.
And so all of a sudden it's, you know, that,
that's,
that's something new. Right.
Um, so anything new that you're feeling also discharge,
if there's nipple discharge, you find
bloody discharge in your bra,
um, that would be something you absolutely want to get checked out.
Ok.
But the truth is that 90% of the cancers that we find,
um,
have no symptoms associated with it
and I think part of that may be because we're doing a good job of
catching them early. Right. You know. Now, what about knowing risk factors?
I would think right away, you know, a family history,
but there are a lot of other things that you can do to,
to try to help yourself maintaining a healthy body weight, eating greens,
eating green vegetables that, you know, can help, uh increase your
uh immune system.
Um, not drinking too much alcohol.
Now, what about someone who's told that they have dense breasts?
What does that mean? And why does that change?
You know, the imaging and all those sorts of things when your breasts are dense,
the X ray can't really penetrate through so well.
Um, and, and it, it can't pick up,
uh, it looks a little bit more cloudy, let's say that.
Um, and so then it can't pick up uh changes as easily.
So for women that still continue to have dense breasts as they're older,
then we say we should add an ultrasound because that can help um
that can help supplement what we see on the, the mammogram.
Now, this is where surgical oncology is,
but right down the hall is actually where they do the breast imaging.
So you guys are very closely connected. Absolutely.
And that's really one of the best things about working in a cancer center,
um especially, you know,
that specializes in women's health because they know how integrated we are.
So, uh I'm a surgeon.
I rely on my radiologists to tell me exactly where I
need to cut where uh how much I need to take.
And so sometimes, you know, that really involves me
talking with them and, and, and going over the images with them.
Now this is actually inside one of your mammography rooms,
but you're really going for a calming effect from
the lighting to the images that you see.
Why, why do that?
It's not just about
um breast imaging, it's about the patient. So we try to hit all the senses
and make sure the patients relax
and try to calm them during a high anxiety exam.