diagnoses that align with breast cancer
America reports a quarter-million of diagnoses that align with breast cancer. Precisely, breast cancer accounts for 12% of the American female population compared to 1% of the male gender. In part, routine screenings help in detecting breast cancer in its early stages and its precancerous stages that are treatable. However, it is worth noting that due to disparities in clinical research data and clinical registries, screening guidelines exhibit vast variations. Herein, screening guidelines recommended by the American Cancer Association and the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) related to self-examination, screening age, utility protocols, and frequency of screening and breast density are explained.
Perhaps the first screening guideline for breast cancer among women that the USPSTF endorses is through self-examination. This involves observing changes in the physical nature of the breast tissue. However, of crucial importance, ACS strongly suggests that women should start clinical screening measures at the age of 40 (Baron at al,. 2018). For most breast examinations, procedures are performed by a clinician who specializes in breast examinations. Under this procedure, the clinician looks for palpations and abnormalities in the tissue (Onega et al,. 2017). For annual screening, women aged 40 should adhere to stipulated guidelines that involve the use of MR imagining scans. MR should be offered to asymptomatic patients who are predisposed to average breast cancer risk. This should be coupled with ultrasonography tests, which helps in increasing detecting rates and reducing intervals rates for most cancers. A breast radiologist is recommended for the interpretation of these tests. For biennial screening, women aged 55 and older should adhere (Baron at al,. 2018). Notably, the ACA urges that the minimum starting age intervals of mammography should align with women age 50 years and those who begin experiencing symptoms in their 40’s. Screening should also go up to women of 75 years.
Also, this screening guideline engenders the element of screening frequency as it relates to women ages. With this, research shows no differences in death frequencies when women aged 50 years and over switch from biennial to annual screenings, and in any case, it only increases harm to the breast tissue and presentations of false-negative results. With that, the USPSTF recommends that women aged 50-74 years of age should opt for biennial mammography. For young women aged 35 and below, screening is discouraged as having breast cancer at this age does not place the women on a ‘high-risk category.’ A 2019 journal research involving 204 participants aged 39 to 48 years indicates that women who have mammography tests at 12 months earlier are likely to develop breast cancer due to overdiagnosis cases (Schapira et al,. 2019). However, the study concludes that overdiagnosis related to this age group is still a complex subject; more research should be geared towards understanding its intricacies.
Another breast cancer recommendation has to do with adjunctive screening, which mostly focuses on dense breast tissue. The American College of Radiology’s Breast describes dense breast as that which has fibrograndular density has more tissue mass, and is prone to less mammography sensitivity (Tice & Kerlikowske, 2017). In other words, women with more dense breasts are likely to breast cancer, and this also means that sensitivity to mammography tests is reduced. Here, ACA recommends that women with dense tissue utilize both ultrasonography and mammography tests for improved diagnosis results.
Conclusion
Understanding the mortality rates that breast cancers afflict the female population, it is essential that guidelines provided by Cancer research bodies such as ACA and USPSTF are followed. Three most critical guidelines that include self-examination, utility protocols age of screening, and frequency are crucial that nurses and health practitioners have to follow. Hence, awareness to address these guidelines for women nurses is important. And while early screenings are discouraged, obtaining relevant up to date information is important to reduce cases of over-diagnoses.