October '08 - Breast Cancer Awareness Month

At Mercy Health Partners, you’ll find the clinical experience and technology you’d expect from a leading-edge healthcare provider. But you’ll also experience something else: compassionate and individualized attention. We call it the Mercy Circle of Caring and you’ll experience it at every point of interaction from registration to rehabilitation.

More on the Mercy Circle of Caring

Mercy Health Partners is a leading-edge healthcare provider that features five award-winning hospitals, board-certified physicians, and a wide variety of programs and services, including Women’s Health Services, state-of-the-art imaging and oncology.

No one wants to think about the possibility of being diagnosed with breast cancer. But the truth is approximately 185,000 people are diagnosed with the disease annually and 40,000 of those patients will die. Although mostly considered a disease that affects women, approximately 2,000 men also die of this disease annually.   

While the statistics can be frightening there are many things you can do to prevent and survive breast cancer. This is a curable disease if caught early.

Risk Factors  

• Becoming a mother at an older age
• Early puberty/menstruation in young girls
• Ethnicity – African American women are at higher risk
• Your family history with the disease
• Your personal history with the disease

Prevention Tips

• Perform self breast exams beginning in your 20’s and 30’s.Be consistent and learn what’s normal for your breasts.
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle –
  • Avoid excessive weight gain after menopause
  • Exercise regularly
  • Decrease alcohol intake
  • Avoid prolonged hormone replacement therapy which may increase your risk
  • Don’t smoke
  • Take daily vitamins
  • Get the proper amount of sleep
• Receive annual mammograms after age 40, and earlier if you’re at a higher risk
• Talk with your physicians about your personal history and risk

Improvements in Detection and Diagnosis have been made that help increase the cure rate of breast cancer.  

• Digital Mammography provides clearer images and more accurate results and is completed the same way film mammograms are performed.
• Breast MRIs are useful in imaging high-risk patients and after a diagnosis
• Ultrasounds
• PET Scanning

What to know about Mammograms

• Mammograms can detect cancer early allowing you to get the treatment you need at an early stage in the disease. Catching the disease early not only increases your chance of survival dramatically but it typically gives you the time to evaluate your treatment options (radiation, lumpectomy, chemotherapy, or other less invasive treatments). 
• To decrease discomfort, go 1 week after your period, and take Tylenol or ibuprofen before you go. 
• Patient callbacks are not uncommon. You may need additional screening especially when it’s your first mammogram or first time at a new facility. If there’s nothing to compare the results to, your doctor may need you to come back in for a second test to know what’s normal for your body.

Don’t wait.  As one cancer survivor said, mammograms may hurt for just a minute, but they don’t hurt as much as cancer.   Mercy Health Partners wants you to live a long and healthy life, and your family does, too.  Schedule your mammogram today.

Mercy Hospital Anderson:
7500 State Road | Cincinnati, Ohio 45255 | 513/95-MERCY.

The Center for Women's Health at Mercy Hospital Anderson:
7502 State Road | Cincinnati, Ohio 45255 | 513/624-3205

Mercy Hospital Clermont:
3000 Hospital Drive | Batavia, Ohio 45103 | 513/95-MERCY. 

Mercy Hospital Fairfield:
3000 Mack Road | Fairfield, Ohio 45014 | 513/95-MERCY. 

Mercy Hospital Mt. Airy:
2446 Kipling Drive | Cincinnati, Ohio 45239 | 513/95-MERCY. 

Mercy Hospital Western Hills:
3131 Queen City Avenue | Cincinnati, Ohio 45238 | 513/95-MERCY.

Mercy Women’s Center at Liberty Falls:
6770 Cincinnati-Dayton Rd Suite 107 | Cincinnati, Ohio 45241 | 513/95-MERCY. 

Milford Medical Imaging:
201 Old Bank Road, Suite 101 | Milford, Ohio 45150 | 513/831-4425

Healthy Ideas: August '08 - National Immunization Month
Healthy Ideas: September '08 - Breathe Easy This Fall
Healthy Ideas: October '08 - Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Healthy Ideas: November '08 - Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month
Healthy Ideas: December '08 - Wellness & Fitness For You