Breast Cancer Awareness: How Risk Factors and Screening Methods Impact Detection

The purpose of this paper is to create awareness around breast cancer risk factorsand screening methods. Five overarching intrinsic risk factors, including: the patient’s age at the time of diagnosis, race, familial susceptibility, and the role of natural hormone changes, and one extrinsic risk factor, dietary habits, were selected for consideration. Along with risk factors, four screening methods were taken into consideration. These included self-breast exams, mammograms, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultrasound. The recommendation of screening methods was then determined in relation to a women’s risk for breast cancer. Two categories of risk (average and high risk) were defined and the recommended screening methods were determined based on the risk. Overall, mammography was found to be a useful tool in both average and high risk women. For high risk women, mammography with MRI had a greater sensitivity and was able to detect more breast cancers. More research needs to be conducted on the efficacy of Breast MRI, Ultrasound, and breast self-exams as supplemental tools to mammography in both average and high-risk women