Elsworth, 52, said she always knew there was a chance she could get breast cancer, but was still surprised when her yearly mammogram looked suspicious last October.

After her biopsy came back positive, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had the lump removed Dec. 5.

Elsworth said she has been doing breast self-examinations since she was a teenager because she was an adopted child and did not know her medical history. However, she didn’t feel the lump during her self exams.

“By the time I would have felt the lump, it would have been a totally different scenario,” she said.

Although a mammogram is the best diagnostic tool at this point, it only detects about 80 percent of breast cancer, said Sharolyn Gonzalez, breast health specialist for Sparrow Regional Cancer Center.

Eileen Cocklin, a Haslett resident, said she has lost some faith in mammograms after she noticed a lump on the side of her breast about five years ago, at age 55.

“My mother had breast cancer, so I was very good about getting my mammogram, but this didn’t show up on a mammogram,” she said.

Elsworth had joined Curves about a month before discovering her cancer, and she said being in the habit of working out when she was diagnosed was the best thing for her.

“I’d work out every day, and in the whole six weeks (of radiation), I probably only felt bad like three times,” she said.

The hardest part was not the radiation or the surgery, but waiting to hear the results.

“It was uncharted waters for me — I’ve been a pretty healthy person all of my life,” Elsworth said.

Both Elsworth and Cocklin’s cancer are in remission, but it’s still not all easy, Cocklin said.

“You never really can enjoy it,” she said.

“Before blood work or all visits, you get a little nervous, whether you tell yourself to or not, because a percentage of them do come back.”

Funding the cause

Although most doctors and researchers recommend all women get a yearly mammogram after the age of 40, there is currently only enough government funding for one in five eligible women to receive the annual screening, said Angela Dockett, marketing communications manager for the Great Lakes Division of the American Cancer Society.

“A lot of the time, women who are uninsured and underinsured go to get their mammogram, only to find there’s no funding left,” she said.

“That requires women either to not get a mammogram, wait until the next year, or pay for it themselves, and a lot of times women can’t afford to do that.”

Mammograms can cost between $50-$150, according to cancer.gov.

Increasing awareness about the lack of funding is one of the goals of MSU’s Colleges Against Cancer, said journalism junior Marissa Cumbers, the group’s president.

“A lot of people know breast cancer is an issue, but everyone at MSU is pretty middle class,” she said.

“For the most part, their parents can afford it and have insurance, but I don’t think they realize a lot of people can’t.”

During this month, Colleges Against Cancer organized a “wear pink day,” has handed out fliers and spent a day outside of Wells Hall handing out ribbons and encouraging people to call their family members to remind them to get a mammogram, Cumbers said.

Spreading awareness

The two main risk factors of breast cancer are being a woman and aging, but that doesn’t mean that college-aged students can’t be affected.

Lauren Dutcher, a student in MSU’s College of Law, noticed a lump in her breast last summer that didn’t go away after a couple of weeks.

After having the lump checked out by her doctor, Dutcher received a mammogram and was told the doctors wanted to do an ultrasound-guided biopsy to make sure it was just a cyst.

“I just remember being there, on the little table, and thinking ‘I’m sitting here doing this so they know if I have breast cancer or not’ — that scared the hell out of me,” she said.

Dutcher’s lump was not cancerous, but she said it made her realize what plenty of women have to go through, and she has become more active in the fight against breast cancer.

For environmental economics and policy sophomore Amrita Mukherjee, breast cancer has had a different sort of effect. Her grandmother died after a 10-year fight against breast cancer when Mukherjee was 2, and her aunt is currently battling the disease.

Watching her aunt suffer is challenging, because in addition to losing her hair, her aunt has to struggle to pay for both her daughter’s education and the treatment, she said.

“I hope I don’t get it, but … (getting it) is something I can’t do anything about,” Mukherjee said. “I just pray to God I don’t suffer the same way my grandmother did, and my aunt is right now.”

Continuing research

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in women, with an estimated 40,930 breast cancer deaths expected in 2008, according to the American Cancer Society. About 450 of those cases are expected to be men.

For women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, partial breast radiation is a new technique being used to treat those who qualify, Gonzalez said. Partial breast radiation is given twice a day for one week, she said.

“For the patient, the big thing is time -in terms of not having to come here for six or seven weeks, especially for people who live out of town,” she said.

Although many doctors promote breast self-examinations to detect lumps, it is not something the American Cancer Society recommends, Dockett said.

“Research has shown that the monthly self breast exam is less important than the self awareness,” she said.

Women that detect their own breast cancer normally find it during normal activities, such as bathing or getting dressed, she said.

Many times, lumps found during self-examinations result in biopsies being performed with benign results, as was the case with Dutcher’s lump.

“Being aware of how breasts look and feel is far more important than the self breast exam,” Dockett said.

However, Curves is currently promoting the use of the Livaid, a device that is used to help magnify feeling and to help women with self-examinations.

The device helps women to become aware of what their breasts feel like, as some women have lumpy breasts, and breast tissue is different during menstruation, Glendinning said.

There currently is no guaranteed way to prevent breast cancer, but the survival rate is 98 percent if detected early, Dockett said. It drops to 27 percent if it’s caught in one of the later stages.

“Sometimes you need people to push you (to get checked), because people are … afraid of what they’re going to find out,” Glendinning said.

“That’s not very good, because in this case, what you don’t know can hurt you.”