Dense Fibrous tissue and "normal" mammograms - you can still have cancer!!!

Hello Carolyn,

Many thanks for sharing you and your daughter's stories with us. You're right -- how incredibly important this information could be for women with dense breast tissue. We hear so much about how vital mammograms are, but this shows that sometimes they're just not enough for some women.

Also, your tips and personal offering to help women learn how to get coverage for an MRI is greatly appreciated. Please keep us posted on any other information you might have on this issue. We need to hear from you!

Best regards,

Maria

I have recently been diagnosed with ductal carcinoma also and I thought I was doing pretty good all these years too.  I am 52 years old and my perky medium sized 25 year old breasts always looked just fine.   Longevity seems to run in my family I thought that was a plus against breast cancer also.  Not one time did any Dr. ever ever tell me that since my breasts had dense tissue, that the mammograms were hard to detect breast cancer.  Not once.!!!!!   I am very angry!   I feel as if  I could have been given the choice of MRI as well and not just written off as just another dense breasted woman who might have breast cancer or might not. Just can't see all that good on those mammograms with all that dense breast tissue.   I think they look at like this......oh well, we hopefully will catch it when it big enough to see on a mammogram .   "OH well,"  this is the attitude I have received from my so called Dr.s.    I feel it is a scam.   I have now been told that MRI is very expensive and costly compared to mammograms.   I say "THat is a bunch of bull".   Compared to the cost of detecting a cancer early and the cost of surgery, the cost of radiation, the cost of chemo, the cost of breast reconstruction, the cost of mental stress on the woman and her entire family....."then MRI costs very very very little.!!!!! "   I have been subjected to a medical scam as far as I am concerned.   And if given the choice of an MRI and my insurance not paying for it......I would have chosen to pay right out of my own pocket for the MRI.   But of course,  I was never given the choice or educated on this major medical flaw in this scam.   It is a racket as I say.  My family laughs at me but they also totally agree.    Don't get me wrong.  I am so happy for mammograms, but I do feel we are steered wrongly if you have dense breast tissue.  Also ,  the only thing my Dr. ever mentioned to me before, many many times....is this......"if it doesn't run in your family, your are ok. "   That is also misleading since I have since learned that 85% of breast cancer cases have no family history of bc.    Very misleading.   And family history is emphasized way way too much!    Also, I have all my records now and can see my mammograms on the computer.   I can see my cancer two years ago on my mammogram( which was read and diagnosed as "negative") and I am not even a radiologist.   I will pursue this matter too.   How many other women has this radiologist hurt?  My report from him was....".negative."   No indication of anything.  And I can see my tumor plain as day.   I encourage everyone to get their x-rays, their reports, and keep track of each and everyone.   And to also go to a Breast Care specialist hospital.  You can look it up on the internet, the top rated hospitals in America.   I will be going to one soon and getting out of this small town hospital where they know very little about up to date treatments on breast cancer.  One thing I have learned thru all this is.....just because a Dr. has perservered thru med school  does not mean they are smart.  They just learned a little bit more than me or you on a certain subject.   And it certainly does not mean they are a caring person for their patient.   As a matter of fact, the radiologist that read my report as negative, was fired due to alcoholism and drug addiction.   You can bet I will be requesting each and every medical exam for anything I have done from now on and keep them on file.   I suggest you do the same.   Watch out for #1, yourself.   I will have a lumpectomy tomorrow and had to insist to my Dr. on an MRI before the lumpectomy.  The radiologist has found one more cancerous suspicious area in my affected right breast thru the MRI.  But for some reason he has not read my left breast MRI.  I have a friend who just found another one in her left breast thru MRI.  I have insisted on the left breast MRI diagnoses so many times since it ws done a few weeks ago and got no answer.    I tell you ......don't let anything slip by.   Watch em like a hawk.   It's a battle just to fight cancer but it is also a battle in your heart to find out all this could have been avoided years ago with the proper diagnostic protocol for dense tissue involvement.    

My dense tissue, also, masked a rather large tumor on mammogram.  Because my mammograms had been considered "normal" for over 10 years no ultrasound was done.  At 60, I noticed a normally slightly retracted nipple was more so and went in for a mammogram, slightly overdue.  Again nothing on mammo, but ultrasound revealed a large tumor for my breast.  A breast MRI showed the true extent of the mass.  Less than two years later I found another cancer that did not show up on the MRI that I had 4 months prior, it was so small that it was considered a fibrocystic change, turned out to be stage 1 invasive cancer.  Since the first cancer I have received diagnostic screenings with MRIs once a year, but even that did not turn up the second cancer.  I go for a scheduled diagnostic screening this summer, but I do not trust that it would show up a cancer if it was there.