The importance of mammograms

In a day and age of information, including health and wellness information, being abundantly available to the human race, mammograms have become quite a focal point when it comes to preventive female health.

And with good reason. Many women’s lives have been saved because they did a mammography screening and their doctors have been able to catch breast cancer before it spreads and becomes potentially more lethal. The longer breast cancer goes undiscovered, the more likely it will not slip into remission and be treated successfully for the patient.

This is why mammograms are stressed as vitally important to women over 40 years, when breast cancer risk goes up statistically higher. They are especially emphasised as important for women of all ages who have a history of breast cancer in the female side of their immediate family since breast cancer has specific gene markers that can be passed down from female generation to female generation.

More and more women are choosing to have these considerably radical procedures done if they even have the genetic markers because their chances of getting the cancer are so much higher than if they did not possess the specific predisposing gene characteristics.

Even with all of this knowledge, and perhaps even a bit of hysteria surrounding the disease, many women are still deciding to skip their annual mammograms, even women in the higher risk groups because of age or family history, which is a bit unsettling considering the potential for their life saving benefits.

Reasons cited for these women foregoing breast screenings are many. Some women feel that they cannot afford these screenings.

Some women dislike the whole process and aspect of discomfort associated with mammography screenings. The process is an uncomfortable one whereby a woman’s breast is squeezed together so that accurate readings of the breast tissue can be taken and scanned, creating a very uncomfortable sensation, as well as some embarrassment and loss of modesty.