Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in Iowa women, but when it’s caught early, the odds for surviving it are exceptional. Jackie Dau, the lead mammography technician at Floyd Valley Healthcare in Le Mars, says for most women, the annual screenings should start around age 40.
Learning about what’s normal, she says, makes it easier to spot a change. More than three-thousand Iowans are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, while about 380 die from it. There are some 38-thousand breast cancer survivors in Iowa, representing about 20-percent of all cancer survivors in the state. Breast cancer isn’t just found in women, Dau says, as thousands of men are also diagnosed each year nationwide.
There are common warning signs of breast cancer, including: a hard lump in the breast, swelling or thickening in part of the breast, pitting or thickening of the skin that resembles an orange peel, and unexplained warmth, redness, or inflammation on the breast skin.
