“Cancer shows up white on a mammogram, so does dense breast tissue,” Lunden said about Love’s recommendation to get an ultrasound in addition to a mammogram. “It’s like looking for a snow ball in the middle of a giant snow storm. And dense breast tissue can really, really mask cancer.”
In June of 2014, Lunden got a clean, 3-D mammogram that appeared to be free of cancer, but because of her interview with Love, Lunden asked for an ultrasound, as well. That was when doctors discovered the tumor, which was one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, on her chest wall. She would not have noticed it through a self breast exam—and it did not appear on the 3-D mammogram — but the ultrasound that she had to request did catch the cancer in time that she was able to get treatment for it.
After her triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis, Lunden underwent 16 rounds of chemotherapy, two blood transfusions, six weeks of radiation, and surgery before she was cancer free.
Lunden has since become an advocate of breast cancer awareness, particularly advocating for legislation that would require radiology labs to inform women if they have dense breast tissue and if a mammogram may not be the sufficient screening tool. Over the past decade, 38 states and the District of Colombia have passed some form of that legislation, Lunden said.
“It’s not surprising that surveys show that most women in America do not know their breast density,” Lunden said. “You only find out your breast density from a mammogram, and most women also do not know that it can mask cancer in a mammogram or that it is a risk factor.”
In 2019, federal legislation was approved, which directed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure breast density information is included in all mammography reports, no matter what state a woman lives in, Lunden said. She added, though, a timeline was not included in that legislation, so radiologists are still operating off of what their current state law is in regard to reporting requirements. Ohio is one of the states with a breast density notification law.
“We couldn’t even get all of the female senators to sign on to that legislation, even though there was no financial (requirement),” Lunden said. “It simply said we had to tell women if they have dense breasts, but (they knew it was) the first domino that would go down and it would eventually require insurance companies to pay for the tests.”
Lunden said the issue of informing women about their breast density and offering additional testing, like ultrasounds, for breast cancer screenings comes down to cost and insurance coverage.
“It seems like whenever the subject of mammograms comes up, there are so many questions and so many conflicting opinions. When should we start them? Does reporting density increase anxiety? Come on, we’re big girls,” Lunden said. “Does adding an ultrasound increase false positives? And of course, with any of these questions, it always brings us back around to same issue and the issue then is cost. And insurance coverage.”
Lunden said the focus on breast cancer screenings cannot be about money, but it has to be about the women.
“It has to be about saving lives,” Lunden said.
Friday’s event also contributed support to Kettering Health Foundation’s Women’s Wellness Fund, which provides breast imaging services and other women’s cancer care to uninsured or underserved women in the Dayton area. Since 1995, the fund has raised $2.2 million, helped more than 15,000 women, and provided nearly $1 million to support the purchase of new tomography units at multiple Kettering Health Breast Center locations.
Get involved
The American Cancer Society’s annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 2022 Dayton 5K Walk will kick off at 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, at Day Air Ballpark, 220 N. Patterson Blvd. in Dayton.
So far, the American Cancer Society has raised $165,647 of its $250,000 goal.
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