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Patty's Story

Name: Patty Barry
Date of Diagnosis: February, 2008
Age at Diagnosis: 53
Stage: 2
Time from 'normal" mammogram to cancer diagnosis: 2 months
How was cancer detected?: By me

I had my annual mammogram in Boston on December 13, 2007 and was in the hospital 8 weeks later having a mastectomy. I had been sent home from my mammogram with "See you next year Mrs. Barry! Everything looks great!" Six weeks later my breast was bleeding and I had surgery a week later in St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, CT. I had heard I had dense tissue but never thought anything of it as long as my tests were ok. We had lived in the Boston area for many years and I went to "the best breast hospital in New England" for my tests even after moving to CT four years ago. After meeting with a surgeon at St. Francis in Hartford she sent me for another mammogram and an ultrasound where 3 tumors were found. I have just finished 4 months of chemotherapy and radiation was completed last week. God bless you for starting this organization. I wrote a short article for the Newtown Bee newspaper about mammograms not being enough protection to find cancer.

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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.