Some things are worse than learning you have cancer. Like not learning you have cancer when in fact, you do.
This spring Intermountain Healthcare Employee Linda Campbell made a new test widely available…and then she took it.
“Part of me still put myself into the professional mode, like, it's fine. I'm fine. I can get through this. I'm strong, right? I have everybody in my court. We caught this so early,” said Campbell.
In April, Campbell switched chairs – rather than operating the Magnetic Resonance Imager, or MRI…she was in it…wondering about her own future.
“But then there's still those little sneaking feelings that come in from doing what I've done for 30 years, right. Like, I've seen a lot of things. And so those worries about metastatic disease and things like that, even though I knew it was so early in the game, all those things still come to mind, right?” said Campbell.
Campbell helps coordinate MRI programs for Intermountain Health. In April they had just figured out how to help women access an important test.
Mammograms are still the gold standard in diagnostic tests for breast cancer…but they aren’t foolproof.
“One of the difficulties with mammography is breast density,” said Dr. Jon Shakespear with Intermountain Health.
“The breast is made up of fibro glandular tissue and fatty tissue, that Fibro glandular tissue is white on a mammogram. And that fatty tissue is black on a mammogram. Cancers are also white on a mammogram,” said Shakespear.
Imagine if your survival depends on finding the right white puzzle piece when they’re all white puzzle pieces.
"Sometimes it's like finding a polar bear in a snowstorm…”
Some women face a high risk of breast cancer.
“My sister was diagnosed the end of 2022. So, I knew that that had increased my risk a little bit more, but still waited to get the mammogram, you know, the mammogram and see what it determined my risk at. So, between dense breast tissue and a new family dot history, with my sister's diagnosis, that put my risk assessment at 21.4%, which was barely over the 20% that the American College of Radiology recommends to get additional screening,” said Campbell.
Campbell practiced what she preaches and got the MRI. The test showed something even the worst diagnostician could spot.
As opposed to a traditional MRI the fast version only takes 10-15 minutes, and it just gets the images needed to find a potential problem.
“Fast MRI is, it's shown to be equivalent in detecting cancer in the screening setting,” said Shakespear.
The fast MRI costs a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand. And when they do find cancer, a full MRI can help the radiologist and surgeon map out the problem. But that full MRI can be prohibitively expensive leading to later diagnosis.
“The larger the cancer gets the, the more time it has to spread. And so those advanced cancers can be very heartbreaking,” said Shakespear.
So Linda Campbell ushered in a way to help other women catch cancer early, only to find herself among the first to benefit.
“It was, it was a lot of work and a lot of moving parts. So, I it made me realize with my diagnosis, how extremely important that lower cost additional screening is for patients because I lived it,” said Campbell.
To find out more and schedule your screening, visit intermoutnainhealthcare.org.
