My Mammogram Missed My Breast Cancer

Breast cancer can strike even young women. And unlike some other kinds of cancers, breast cancer can strike right to the heart of a woman’s feminine view of herself. Worse, the medically accepted methods of both diagnosing and treating it are not always one hundred percent accurate. Even mammograms, considered the go-to method of conclusively determining whether or not a patient actually has breast cancer, has a failure rate. The scans can sometimes not catch the cancer, or can falsely indicate that a mass or lump is non-cancerous.

Doctors rely upon these tests, but sometimes they can do so too much. They order a mammogram, and when it comes back negative but only results in their patient continuing to insist something is wrong and should be investigated further, that can turn doctor and patient against one another. Medical researchers have data showing mammograms miss fifteen percent of all breast cancer, but despite this doctors will still often look at a scan’s result and feel that’s the end of the issue.

Patients need to be willing and ready to stand up and seek second opinions, or even to battle against healthcare providers who are ready to dismiss medical concerns the patient may have. Especially when it’s breast cancer, a condition that can have radical impacts on a patient if it’s left until too late to treat.