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Barb's Story

Name: Barb Levine-Ritterman
Date of Diagnosis: June 6, 2004
Age at Diagnosis: 51
Stage: 2
Time from "normal" mammogram to cancer diagnosis: 0 months
How was cancer detected: Ultrasound

Thank you for creating this site. I come from a high risk family - my mother and her sister both had breast cancer. I had lumpy breasts and many scares, starting at age 26. Biopsies started in my 40's. Thank goodness for an alert surgeon who required annual ultrasounds, plus being seen every 3 mo.s (surgeon visit, OB/GYN, ultrasound, mammogram). The ultrasound found the 2 cm tumor. The biopsy found cancer. The mammogram was NEGATIVE. I chose bilateral mastectomies. Surgery found positive nodes. I endured chemo, a life-threatening pneumonia from the chemo, radiation -- and my children were 6 & 9. Thank goodness for the surgeon and her ultrasound. I mostly wanted to say -- THANK YOU for your work. I read about it in this Sunday's New Haven Register. I'm happy to help in any way I can -- for all of us; and for our daughters (mine is 13 now).

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AYD In The News

What is Dense Breast Tissue?

How Do I Know if I Have Dense Breast Tissue?

What Do I Do if I Have Dense Breast Tissue?

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.