Doctors: 'Women Get Your Mammograms'

Month.

Every tuesday, we'll be covering a number of topics on breast health.

Today we're kicking off the series with learning the importance of getting a mammogram.

News 18's micah upshaw joins us in the studio to tells us more.

Experts say the best way women can prevent breast cancer from becoming deadly is through getting a mammogram.

And results are even better when it's done every year.

Iu health arnett doctor josh nepute says it's helped many women locally.

:12 nat j: if this patient had not come in every single year for her screening mammogram, we may not have caught these calcifications... j: it's very important for women to come in on a arly basis.

Mammography is the most effective way to prevent breast cancers from getting to a point where they're no longer treatable.

Nat j: we won't be doing any patients i don't believe... m: doctor josh nepute works as a physician for breast radiology at iu health arnett.

His experience performing mammograms through the years brings him back to one major takeaway -- the earlier the cancer can be caught, the better the outcome.

J: it's very common for us to find very early breast cancers in women where they won't even be able to feel it, they don't even know it's there.

M: that's thanks to a fairly new machinery that's giving doctors a 3-dimensional, deeper look inside the breast.

There's also machinery specifically designed for patients with more dense- breast tissue.

According to nepute, it's these patients that tend to be at higher risk of getting breast cancer.

J: we have a wide variety of tech us screen for breast cancer in any of our patients.

M: the machines can capture cancers as small as a millimeter in size.

That's about the size of the tip of a pencil.

J: that's why it's important to actually come in for the mammogram because that's really one of the only ways that you're going to be able to detect the cancer at such an early stage.

Doctor nepute suggests women begin getting mammograms at age 40.

You can find out how to schedule it on our website wlfi.com.

Micah upshaw, news 18.

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