Producer Nikki caught up with Meena Mital, Chief Medical Officer at Neighbor Care Health, to discuss breast health for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Learn more at https://neighborcare.org

Transcript:

Nikki Barron

Hey everybody, welcome to a special segment of wellness Wednesday for breast cancer awareness month, which is this month and I am here with Meena Mital, the Chief Medical Officer at Neighbor Care health. Welcome to the show.

Meena Mital

Thank you so much for having me.

Nikki Barron

Great. So let's, let's dive right in. So I had a couple questions here, for you about breast health. So the first is what is the best way to detect breast cancer? And why is it important to check.

Meena Mital

So the best way to detect breast cancer is to do is what would call age appropriate screening, which really means mammograms for women in certain age groups. And it's very important to be on top of your screening as as a woman, because there are available treatments for breast cancer. So finding it early is really important.

Nikki Barron

And so who should get screened? And how often should we be doing these screenings?

Meena Mital

Yeah, it's a really confusing question at times, because there's a lot of controversy out there. If I were to summarize, I would say women have in the age range between 40 and 50, should talk with their provider about the appropriateness of breast cancer screening. There are pros and cons to doing it and different guidelines out there. But based on her history, a woman may decide to start screening in that age range. And then after age 50, pretty universal that getting regular mammograms is important. So it's good to remember that. And then I would just put a caveat that those are the recommendations for women of what we would call average risk. So if a woman has a personal history of breast cancer, a family history of breast cancer or known genetic mutation that increases her risk of breast cancer, it may be different and really important to talk to their provider about it.

Nikki Barron

Right. And so where can people get screened for this?

Meena Mital So there are all sorts of locations around the city. Many of the major healthcare delivery organizations have breast centers where you can get mammograms, and then it Neighbor Care Health. We also have Mammovans, so vans that come to our clinics on a regular basis, to make it really easy and convenient for women to come and get their mammograms.

Nikki Barron

And where can someone find out where a van will be near them.

Meena Mital

So the best way would be just to call Neighbor Care Health, our main line, and we can help you get hooked up with a mammogram.

Nikki Barron

Great. Um, and so I actually personal story. When I was 20 years old, I was laying at home watching late night television, and they used to run these ads about self exam. And so I was laying on the couch and I was like, Okay, I was like doing the exam. And I found actually found a lump and it was super scary, and went in got checked ended up just being a benign cyst, they removed it just to be safe. But do you guys still recommend the self exam is that still something as recommended?

Meena Mital

You know, there isn't very strong clinical evidence for either clinical breast exam or self exam anymore. That said, although there isn't specific recommendation for women to do self exams, and again, this is an average risk women, it is a good idea to sort of know your own breasts, because a lot of times, women are the ones who find an something that's different, and can bring it to clip to the attention of their clinicians on a timely basis. So while it's not necessarily recommended to do self breast exams, it is a good idea to know your own breasts.

Nikki Barron Great. Well, thank you so much for your time, this was super helpful and informative. And we will put the phone number up where people can call Neighbor Care Health, and find out where the man will be. Oh, and I guess they'd had one more question. And, and this is just about neighbor care health in general. And if you don't have insurance, or if you are under insured, people can still go and get this exam, correct?

Meena Mital

Absolutely. Yeah, and neighbor Care Health. It's really important to us to serve our entire community. So we have services to ensure that we can connect to people who are under insured or uninsured.

Nikki Barron

Thank you so much for your time.

Meena Mital

Okay, thank you.