Breast Cancer Screening

Dr. McLaughlin recommends annual breast cancer screening after age 35 (or sooner if a close family relative developed breast cancer under age 40). Digital mammography, often with breast ultrasound, helps identify early malignancies that are too small to be felt through self-exam or at the time of the annual exam.

If you have several close relatives who have developed breast cancer, you may have an increased genetic risk to develop the disease yourself. You may be advised to see a genetic counselor to further assess your risk through genetic testing (BrCa 1 & 2 genes). You may elect to begin taking tamoxifen (if you are premenopausal) or Evista (if you are postmenopausal). After two years of taking Evista, you lower your risk of developing breast cancer by 70%! Evista blocks estrogen-receptor positive breast cancers, which account for about 75% of the breast cancers.