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Since 1985, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month has brought breast cancer into the forefront of people’s minds, raising awareness for an issue effecting about 240,000 women in the United States each year.

Unity Hospital radiology technologist Fran Craighead said one of the simplest ways a woman can protect herself against breast cancer is having regularly scheduled mammograms.

“The American College of Radiology and the American Cancer Society recommends that women should start having their mammograms yearly by age 40 unless they are at a higher risk,” Craighead said. “

Craighead said a family history of breast cancer could be one of the reasons a woman could be classified as having a higher risk for breast cancer.

“If that is the case, sometimes their physician will recommend that they have their mammography sooner than age 40,” she said.

Certified in mammography since 1996, Craighead said a mammogram is nothing to be afraid of, and she works to make sure every woman who comes to see her for the test feels comfortable.

“It is beneficial for her to have a piece of mind that she has come and had a screening procedure done and it comes back as negative and it is clean,” she said. “That is good because the main thing with mammography is you want to catch breast cancer in the earliest stage possible because the earlier you check it then the likelihood of her surviving is much greater.”

Craighead said it is a simple test, and she can complete one in only 15 minutes.

“I will ask her a few questions about her history and then she will go into the dressing room and get undressed and then I will do a routine four pictures on her breast,” Craighead said. “There is compression, there is a little bit of discomfort, but a mammogram should never be painful.”

Craighead said a mammogram should be thought of like any other routine medical screening that needs done on an annual basis for women.

“She needs to have physicals, pap smears and mammograms,” she said. “That keeps her healthy. She has to think not just about herself but her family, her husband, her children, her grandchildren. They want to keep her in their life as long as possible and this is a tool we use to make that person feel like she is taking care of herself and if there is a problem we will find it. “

Dr. Rene Del Valle, obstetrician gynecologist and addiction specialist, said it is very important for women to know their risk for breast cancer.

“What I tell a woman, is in their twenties they need to start thinking about, what are my risks for breast cancer,” he said. “The risks are so different for every woman and it depends on their family history, their diet, even their race.”

All these factors determine just how frequently a woman should have a mammogram performed.

“Their family doctor can help them with this to guide them in which way they should go depending on their risk,” Del Valle said. “There is a woman that is super low risk that can start mammograms at 40 and maybe have them every year and there are high risk women that maybe start them at age 30 or 35 and have it every year or even sooner, it just depends on the woman.”

Del Valle said the women with the highest risk for breast cancer have a gene mutation known as the BRCA gene.

“If they are positive for that gene, their chance of getting breast cancer is 72%,” he said.

Del Valle said if he detects an anomaly, he will refer his patient to a breast specialist.

“If a woman comes to me and she has an abnormal mammogram or I feel something in her breast that is not normal, I discuss it with them and then say, okay we need to do this next and usually the next step is if I feel a lump or the mammogram sees something I send them to a breast specialist and these are surgeons that specialize in breasts and that is all they do so that is the person you want to see,” he said.

Del Valle said he has been practicing medicine for 35 years, and has seen significant strides made in booth detecting and treating breast cancer in that time, while a national awareness month keeps it in the collective consciousness.

“It is just important because it gets women to think about it again,” he said. “People put it off, they don’t think about it and when you have a breast awareness month it brings it back up to the surface, how important it is and how common.”