Bunny Gleiman, a patient of Dr. Barbara Jaeger, Director of Women's Imaging at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, recently underwent a mammogram and discovered something unexpected: calcifications in the arteries of her breast.

"We have seen these as incidental findings when we screen for cancer, now new studies have shown this does relate to a person's risk of coronary artery disease and cardiovascular disease," Dr. Jaeger said.

Dr. Mark Applefeld, a Mercy cardiologist, said doctors and patients should take note of heart health when reviewing mammograms.

"It is yet another risk factor, which identified on a mammogram, a doctor and patient should consider as another risk of heart disease," Applefeld said.

That's exactly what Gleiman did.

"I went to my internist who looked at the findings and (confirmed that) I did have (calcifications), and I was put in a risk-management program," she said.

She's now on medicine for high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and working on changes in lifestyle in hopes that early intervention will help her enjoy shopping for a number of years to come.

Now, the doctors are not talking about calcifications within the breast tissue, but calcifications within the arteries of the breast.

A number of doctors think the mammogram may become an important screening tool for women in the fight against heart disease.

IF THIS STORY IS OF INTEREST, VIEW THE ARTICLE BELOW BY DR. BARBARA JAEGER FOR MORE DETAILS.

If you're a woman age 40 or older, there are more good reasons than ever to have an annual mammogram. As per a recent study of nearly 2,000 women, mammograms were shown to detect calcifications in breast arteries. indicating an increased chance of developing heart disease and stroke.

More than 350,000 U.S. women die of heart disease each year, as compared to about 40,000 who die from breast cancer. Despite this difference, a number of women still believe breast cancer to be the greater risk. making mammography's potential dual role as a device for detecting early heart disease all the more significant.

Because of mammography's high resolution, very small calcifications can be seen which are not visible on normal X-rays, appearing as distinct white lines. When these calcifications occur within blood vessels, this is known as atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries.

The calcifications detected are calcium deposits that may form in diseased arteries narrowed by fatty plaque. Heart and breast arteries are of similar size and are believed to respond similarly to factors like high cholesterol.

Past research has shown that women with calcified breast arteries faced a sharply higher risk of cardiovascular death, particularly if they had diabetes. Researchers have also found that the deposits, which increase with age, raised the risk of cardiovascular disease in women.

While the purpose of mammography remains the accurate detection and diagnosis of breast cancer, this research will give both radiologist and patient something more to consider when reviewing mammograms.



Posted by: Betsy    Source

---