by Sue Gautot
Mammography is often called the first line of defense against breast cancer. That’s why every October, during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, women over the age of 40 are urged to schedule their annual mammogram. But women of all ages have another set of tools that can help with detection and prevention in between screenings: your hands.
A few years ago, the U.S. Preventive Task Force actually recommended against Breast Self-Exams. Research showed that women didn’t understand what they were supposed to be feeling for. Some women were getting unnecessary procedures due to “false positives. Others would come to their providers with a golf-ball sized lump.
The National Cancer Institute asked two University of Florida scientists to develop a better breast-self exam. Henry Pennypacker and Mark Goldstein, both behavioral psychologists by training, felt that a woman’s fingers could be trained to distinguish between normal lumps and cancerous ones, much like they can learn to read Braille.
Working with doctors and engineers, Pennypacker and Goldstein developed models of breasts and tumors, as well as software that guided people through the process of detecting lumps. They formed a company called MammaCare, which has trained thousands of health practitioners and women with proper breast self-exam techniques.
It takes a while to train your sense of touch. The MammaCare method shows women how to move their fingers in different patterns across the breasts, using the pads of the middle three fingers. Some patterns are circular while others run vertical. The method progresses through varying degrees of pressure, from light to medium to deep.
The patterns run all the way up to the collarbones and well below the breast and on the sides of the breast tissue. Most women aren’t aware that the areas they should check extend well beyond the breast. Women also need to position their bodies in different ways to ensure they feel deeply enough into the breast tissue.
Women using the MammaCare Breast Self Exam method are capable of detecting lumps approximately 0.5 centimeters in size. That is significantly smaller than the average-sized lumps found by women practicing conventional self-exams (2.0 cm) or untrained women who accidentally discover a lump (3.6 cm, which is roughly the size as a ping-pong ball.)
Proper training in performing Breast Self Exams also benefits your healthcare provider. You know your body better than anybody, and using the MammaCare method can guide her or him to areas of concern more quickly if you feel something out of the ordinary.
Breast Self-Exams should be part of your detection and prevention plan, not a replacement for clinical breast exams or mammograms. The American Cancer Society guidelines recommends women start breast self-exams in their twenties. Clinical breast exams should be conducted every three years for women in their twenties and thirties and every year when you reach your forties. Annual mammograms should start at age 40. Some of these recommendations are adjusted based on a woman’s family history or genetic risk. Talk to your provider about these issues to make sure your screening plan is appropriate.
BMH offers a one-on-one free tutorial for anyone interest in learning the MammaCare breast self-examination method. To schedule an appointment please call 802-275-3606.
Sue Gautot, RT, R, M is a Diagnostic Imaging Technologist in the Department of Radiology at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.