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Nancy's Chalkboard: blogging and blabbing about breasts and whatever else Nancy fancies

Nancy's Chalkboard Blog

  • Kitty Litter, Prescription Drugs & Dense Breasts

    Whether issued by a manufacturer or a government agency, the vast array of warnings is to educate and protect the consumer from the potential risks of a product. Prescription drug warnings about loose stools, leakages, nosebleeds and "erections that may last more than four hours" are repeated daily in TV commercials.

  • Staggering Disparity in BC Diagnosis: How 100 Miles Make the Difference

    Diagnosed with invasive breast cancer within three days of each other, Jan and Cindy experienced two divergent outcomes after a "normal" mammography report. Jan had an early stage cancer with no node involvement. Cindy had an advanced stage with metastases to 16 lymph nodes. What's the culprit? One hundred miles.

  • Huff Post Blog by Dr. David Katz - The Trouble With Dense Breasts

    Dr. Katz interviews Dr. Nancy Cappello about the mission and impact of Are You Dense Inc.

Are You Dense? Fact #1: Breast density is one of the strongest predictors of the failure of mammography screening to detect cancer.

Are You Dense? Fact #2: Two-thirds of pre-menopausal women and 40% of post-menopausal women have dense breast tissue.

Are You Dense? Fact #3: Adding more sensitive tests to mammography significantly increase detection of invasive cancers that are small and node negative.

Are You Dense? Fact #4: American College of Radiology describes women with "Dense Breast Tissue" as having a higher than average risk of Breast Cancer.

Are You Dense? Fact #5: While a mammogram detects 98% of cancers in women with fatty breasts, it finds only 48% in women with dense breasts.

Are You Dense? Fact #6: A woman at average risk and a woman at high risk have an EQUAL chance of having their cancer masked by mammogram.

Are You Dense? Fact #7: Women with dense breasts who had breast cancer have a four times higher risk of recurrence than women with less-dense breasts.

Are You Dense? Fact #8: A substantial proportion of Breast Cancer can be attributed to high breast density alone.

Are You Dense? Fact #9: Cancer turns up five times more often in women with extremely dense breasts than those with the most fatty tissue.

Are You Dense? Fact #10: There are too many women who are unaware of their breast density, believe their “Happy Gram” when it reports no significant findings and are at risk of receiving a later stage cancer diagnosis.