My mother lost both breasts to breast cancer. The first breast was removed back in the forties by a doctor that didn't know what he was doing. It left horrific scars and a lifelong fear of breast cancer in both my mother and me. She lost the second breast in the sixties. The radiation and chemo treatments made her very sick. Most of her hair fell out.

Earlier detection would have helped. Back then, things like mammograms weren't available, at least not where we were. Now new methods of early detection are available. One of these new tools is the Sentinel Breast Scan. It doesn't replace other methods, but is designed to be a part of the yearly screening, along with the ultrasound and MRI.

According to CBS4Denver,

The patient sits facing an infrared camera and air is circulated to cool down her chest area. For about four minutes, the scan then records temperature differences or areas that remain hot. The software analyzes those images, searching for abnormalities, including blood vessels that develop to feed cancerous tumors.

"Breast cancer is there for ten years before you have tissue diagnosis," said Integrated OB-GYN Dr. Susanna Choi. "We want to make sure that we can get to it earlier."

Over 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. Of those,almost 40,000 will die. Over 1 million women in the United States have died of this disease since 1970. These statistics are from The Breast Site where you can find a great deal of information about breast cancer.

I still fear breast cancer because it is a killer. Let's hope the Sentinel BreastScan will help reduce the numbers of deaths.

Image from CBC4Denver