SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WSBT) -- A new report from the American Cancer Society out this month claims younger women are being diagnosed with breast cancer at a higher rate.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. In this month's Eye on Health, Beacon Health System is highlighting why annual mammograms are key to early detection.
It's estimated that more than one percent of the entire U.S. population are breast cancer survivors.
Catching the cancer early with a mammogram that takes about 20 minutes can add decades to a person's life, according to Dr. Samir Patel, a radiologist at Beacon Health System.
Monica Santa still remembers her breast cancer diagnosis 20 years ago like it was yesterday.
"July 6th at 10:00 in the morning. I think about it every year when it comes along," she said.
Santa started getting yearly mammograms at age 40 at the urging of her colleagues. She worked as an image coordinator in the Breast Care Center at Beacon Health System, which is the same department in which she'd soon become a patient.
"It was the best place to work and the best place to get sick at, if that makes sense, because they took care of me and I could talk about my experience," she said.
Breast cancer didn't run in her family. The cancer only showed up on a mammogram and not in a self-screening.
"I couldn't feel it. The nurse couldn't feel it when I had my monthly exam," said Santa.
She underwent radiation at age 47 and has since been cancer free. Discovering it early greatly improved living to tell her story.
"If we do detect cancer early, we are talking about a 99 percent survival rate. It is one of the greatest success stories in medicine," said Dr. Patel.
Dr. Patel diagnosed Monica's breast cancer and said she started getting mammograms at the right age. He wrote a paper in 2018 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology in which he looked at more than 450 breast cancer patients in Michiana to see how often they were getting mammograms and to compare the results.
"The data was very stark. It showed that if women got a mammogram every year, their risk of dying from breast cancer was reduced by 40 percent compared to women if they went every other year," he said.
Dr. Patel added that some women younger than 40 with a strong family history of breast cancer, or have a gene for breast cancer, should start getting mammograms at the age of 30. But, he said, no matter what age, simply don't put off getting one.
"Most women that actually come to get their mammograms, will not have a diagnosis of cancer. If 1,000 women undergo mammography, only two to eight of those patients will have breast cancer," he said.
As for Santa, she now volunteers her time during retirement at the very place that changed, and saved, her life.
"What a journey it has been because I got my mammogram. I get real emotional over it," she said.
In addition to self-screenings and yearly mammograms, Dr. Patel recommends women maintain a healthy lifestyle through diet and exercise, don't smoke and limit their alcohol consumption.
You can watch the full interview with Dr. Patel on the WSBT YouTube page. He also talks about common misconceptions surrounding mammograms, which demographic is more at risk for cancer and the advanced technology Beacon Health System uses to detect breast cancer.