When Should a Woman Begin Having Mammogram Tests?

My sister, who's three years older than me, had her second annual mammogram test last August. Before going through her first test last year, she consulted a number of friends in the medical profession to find out from them the benefits and risks of a mammogram test. Besides being assured of mammogram's safeness and of its benefits, the one advice she received which she remembers the most - and which made her decide on having that very first test - was that since she turned fifty then, it was all right for her to have annual mammogram tests, beginning that year.

Mammogram is one of the subdivisions of diagnostic radiology - specifically, a form of X-ray. It is used to visualize the breast's inside and aids a doctor in detecting malignant tumors with an accuracy of up to ninety-five percent, often in their earliest developmental stages when they can be dealt with medically without much difficulty. Medical experts have already confirmed the safeness and medical worth of mammogram, and there have been no significant opposition towards this professional assurance. The opposing views, rather, focus on when a woman should begin having mammogram tests.

Before tackling the age issue, it is important to first understand how a mammogram test works. As in the other types of X-ray, radiation is the key process on which a mammogram depends to take pictures of the body's interior; hence, the mammogram we ordinarily know is called film mammography. But in the case of digital mammography (which is the more advanced form of mammography) pictures are passed along directly to a computer screen, and then enhanced to produce more accurate pictures.

It was thought in the early years of mammography that annual screening may pose risk of cancer (particularly breast cancer) due to the radiation involved in the process. But this concern was promptly put to rest by the numerous trials and tests conducted, all of which proved that the slight exposure from such modern apparatus or machine such as mammogram hardly causes even the least of risks.