In the 5 years since I've been a member of this board, the following question routinely surfaces every so often.
"If I'm having regular CT or PET scans, do I need to still have a mammogram"?
So today, when I was having my yearly CT scan, I remembered to ask this question. Here's the answer I got from the technician.
An emphatic YES. Apparently there are govt regulations for the sensitivity of mammograms and the CT just isn't anywhere nearly as good at picking up small abnormalities in the dense breast tissue. He made this analogy (in reference to my insurance company denying my chest CT unless a chest X-ray showed something). By the time the chest X-ray showed a tumor in my lungs, it would be so big, as the tech said, I'd be 'toast'. Same thing for the CT vs mammography. By the time the CT would pick up a breast tumor, it would be so big that, the patient, again would be 'toast'. He also said a PET doesn't substitute either as breast tumors can start out (a) either so small as to not be picked up or (b) breast tissue that can turn cancerous doesn't necessarily start out that way (ie PET wouldn't pick it up).
Moral of the story ladies - get those yearly mammograms. Schedule it to coincide with something - beginning of spring, end of summer, your birthday, whatever, but just get it done!