On June 1 2010, Dianne had a 6-month checkup with her surgeon Dr. Gayle Blouin, and she was pleased with the healing and checkup. Next visit will be in 6 months. It is hard to believe that her diagnosis was in October 2008, but we give all thanks to our Lord for his grace and mercy in healing her body and giving us such wonderful Doctors.
We were pleased with Dianne's visit to see Dr. Edenfield, her Medical Oncologist. Her blood test results were good. However, Dr. Edenfield will continue to keep check on her white blood cell count. It is stable, but has not gotten back to the level before chemotherapy. He stated that chemotherapy sometimes will reset the "normal" white cell count because chemo hits the immune system hard by killing good cells as well as bad cells. It is not a concern to him, but Dianne will have it checked every 90 days.
In the USA, 1 out of 8 women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. The earlier the breast cancer is found, the more likely a woman will live a normal life.
There are so many advances to detect breast cancer being made by using clinical trials. One of the trials is a new imaging technology which will compare breast tomosynthesis with conventional digital mammography. Many women have dense breast tissue. On a conventional mammogram, it can look similar to cancer, but "breast tomosynthesis" allows the Doctor to see multiple slices of the breast which improves the ability to see a malignancy that may be hidden by overlapping tissue.
Breast tomosynthesis is a 3-dimensional [3-D] imaging technology that involves a number of low doses of a breast in a short 5-second scan. A very powerful computer is then used to reconstruct the images into a series of thin high-resolution slices. Reconstructed tomosyntheseis slices reduce or eliminate the problems caused by tissue overlap and structure noise in conventional 2-dimensional mammography. Breast tomosynthesis also offers a number of opportunities including improved diagnostic and screening accuracy, fewer recalls, greater radiologist confidence, and 3-D lesion localization.
It is predicted that fewer false positive results will occur with breast tomosynthesis because the images are clearer. Also, it is believed that radiologists will be able to see smaller lesions than what can be seen on conventional mammograms. Isolated areas of the breast can be looked at in more detail than with conventional mammography.
Breast tomosynthesis is available commercially in Europe and Canada, but not yet approved in the United States but through clinical trials hospitals are gathering data for FDA approval.
Please support breast cancer research and pray that breast cancer will be eliminated.
God's grace.
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