Health
Katie Couric’s breast cancer: What other women can learn from her diagnosis
Longtime tv journalist Katie Couric introduced this week that she was identified with breast most cancers in June of this yr and has now undergone profitable surgical procedure to take away a 2.5-centimeter tumor.
“Each two minutes, a girl is identified with breast most cancers in the US. On June twenty first, I grew to become considered one of them,” Couric tweeted on Sept. 28, 2022.
Couric determined to have “breast conservation” surgical procedure adopted by radiation and medicine, as Fox Information Digital simply reported.
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Mammography and ultrasound are lifesaving instruments — and girls have to put mammography on the prime of their to-do record, Dr. Marisa Weiss, chief medical officer and founding father of Breastcancer.org, instructed Fox Information Digital in a cellphone interview.
Katie Couric introduced this week that she’s being handled for breast most cancers. Her husband, Jay, handed away of colon most cancers in 1998 — and in 2000, she aired her personal colonoscopy on TV to boost a larger consciousness of necessary screening exams. Now, a breast screening check often called a breast ultrasound helped her physician establish Couric’s breast most cancers.
(Photograph by Mike Windle/Getty Pictures for EPIX)
Dr. Weiss presently practices at Lankenau Medical Heart in Wynnewood, Penn., the place she serves as director of breast radiation oncology and director of breast well being outreach.
“Breast most cancers is the commonest most cancers to have an effect on ladies,” mentioned Weiss.
“And there is a chance to seek out it early and save lives. Our greatest instrument to seek out breast most cancers early earlier than it spreads to different components of the physique is mammography — digital mammography.”
“Mammography might save your life. It might aid you get the most effective and simplest therapy with the least unintended effects.”
She added, “Mammography might save your life. It might aid you get the most effective and simplest therapy with the least unintended effects.”
Dr. Weiss mentioned that it’s essential to seek out breast most cancers early, “when it may be probably the most successfully handled with the least aggressive therapies.”
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She additionally mentioned, “Most breast most cancers is discovered by way of mammography. Roughly, a 3rd or 40 p.c is discovered by way of mammography, 20-25% is discovered by way of bodily examination alone and the remainder of circumstances are discovered with a mixture of the 2.”
A girl is proven getting a mammogram. Some ladies additionally have to have a breast ultrasound, which offers extra info to docs.
(iStock)
Weiss mentioned the “greatest shot at early detection” will depend on “prime quality mammography achieved early — annually beginning at age 40.”
She additionally mentioned that many ladies “are coming in with a lot later levels of illness as a result of their mammogram slipped off their schedule in the course of the [COVID] pandemic.”
Weiss famous that that is “notably true for individuals who have much less entry to high quality care.”
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“The people who find themselves most certainly to have a delayed analysis, due to the pandemic and having a tougher time gaining access to mammography, are people who find themselves [among] under-represented populations,” she famous.
If a girl’s physician advises an ultrasound of the breast after a mammogram, the physician is searching for extra details about a possible hassle spot.
“Black ladies usually tend to be identified with later levels of illness and at an earlier age,” she mentioned.
If a girl’s physician advises an ultrasound of the breast after a mammogram, the physician is searching for extra info on a possible hassle spot, mentioned Weiss.
“Ultrasound is mostly not a screening check,” mentioned Weiss, “however a supplemental check. For those who see something you’re involved about, ultrasound — which makes use of sound waves — can see what’s going on in that location.”
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An ultrasound can discover a “lump, irregularity, or architectural distortion” within the breast, she famous.
Katie Couric overtly mentioned her breast most cancers analysis this week. “As a result of my breasts are dense,” she wrote, “I routinely get an extra screening utilizing a breast ultrasound.”
(AP)
“It is one other method to take a look at the breast, may be very useful to in deciding if it’s a fluid-filled construction, like a cyst, or a stable spot like a nodule that might be most cancers,” she defined.
Ultrasounds include “no radiation, so it is used commonly,” mentioned Weiss.
“If a mammogram reveals something that’s a bit bit questionable, it’s a pleasant add-on, notably in the event you’re a teenager.”
She emphasised, “Mammography might save your life. It might aid you get the most effective and simplest therapy with the least unintended effects.”
She added, “Our life is our biggest reward, and it’s our job to handle ourselves.”