New FDA rule aims to help women detect breast cancer

LIBERTY, Mo. (KCTV) - A new FDA rule will help protect millions of women from breast cancer.

Starting on Tuesday, Sept. 10, when a patient goes to get a mammogram, the doctors are required to let women know about their breast density.

The FDA originally issued the rule on March 10 but extended the implementation date to give mammography facilities additional time to follow the new guidelines.

Breast density is categorized into four categories: fatty, scattered tissue, heterogeneously dense or extremely dense.

“Dense breasts can hide cancers on mammography, because breast cancers on mammography look similar to that breast tissue,” said Dr. Amy Patel, a radiologist at the Breast Care Center at Liberty Hospital.

The FDA now requires doctors to give women a letter letting them know if they have dense breasts or not, what the risks are, and what steps they need to take.

Dr. Patel said this new rule is a long time coming and will benefit so many women moving forward.

“We’re going to see more cancers found and that’s the exciting part of it,” she said, “we’re going to be able to save more lives, we’re going to be able to find more cancers when they’re millimetric so that these patients can live a long and healthy life.”

Cancer survivor, Sharon Butler Payne, who is also the Founder and Executive Director of Bra Couture KC said her breast cancer story began with dense tissue.

Before she was diagnosed in 2012 her cancer went undetected. She said she had dense breasts and didn’t even know it.

“So, it just sat there getting worse and worse and worse.”

Payne said she took all the right steps, getting a mammogram screening three months before she was diagnosed and was shocked when doctors found cancer.

“I was like how; ‘how did this happen?’ And I didn’t even really know the whole tissue story and the dense tissue issue at that time,” she said.

Like Payne, many women don’t know they have dense tissue and that if they do, they are at a higher risk for breast cancer.

“I am a breast cancer survivor but now I am fighting another catastrophic disease that was caused because the cancer hid in the density of my breast,” said Payne.

Cancer survivors like Payne said this ruling could have helped her and hopes this will reduce delays in other women’s diagnoses.

“The fact that women now have to be told, gives them the opportunity to pursue to get additional screening to ensure that the cancer is not hiding in their breast, like it did in mine,” said Payne.

Dr. Patel said the new rule is an exciting improvement to help women take charge of their breast health, but the work is far from over, the next step is making sure all additional screening is covered by insurance.

Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.