How is breast screening performed if I have breast implants?

All breast implants block mammograms. This blockage could be as low as 3% or higher than 60%. Doctors disagree.

Radiologists try to take special views of the breast tissue, but there is no question that some of the tissue will be blocked. X-rays cannot penetrate silicone (either the gel or saline) implants. The argument is academic as to just how much tissue is blocked by the implants.

Even if 1% of tissue is blocked, if your cancer is in that 1% and the mammogram doesn't pick it up, you lose. Breast cancer is visible on a mammogram two years before it can be felt on examination. Magnetic resonance imagings (MRIs) are the solution to this problem.

An MRI can see through breast implants. It is much better at imaging breasts and does not use harmful radiation. Unfortunately, an MRI costs at least ten times what a mammogram costs.

Most insurance companies will not pay. I have had patients with obvious ruptures who were first required by health insurers to have useless breast ultrasounds to try and save money. If a woman has a breast implant placed inside her chest, blocking future mammograms, she must undergo MRI studies to remain safe.

If you can't afford the expense, you shouldn't have the surgery. How can health insurance companies get away with not paying for MRIs of the breasts when they are mandated to pay for mammograms? Women's groups should realize that if they demand coverage of breast MRIs, insurance companies ultimately will have to provide them.

As the demand increases, more MRI facilities will become available, decreasing costs. In twenty years, radiation-emitting mammograms will seem archaic; all women will have MRI mammograms. Breast examination is usually easier with implants.

No increase in breast cancer has been noted in women with implants. Despite the fact that mammograms are less useful, there is no difference in the size of breast cancers discovered in women with implants and those without them. Cancers are easy to miss.

Implants provide a platform to push against and actually make breast exams easier (unless, of course, scarring causes rock-hard breasts).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.