Dr. Jenn Simmons explains radial scars, which appear as starburst patterns on mammograms. Some contain atypia and some don't. She's excised about 100 radial scars with no cancer upgrades, and says management depends on whether atypia is present and patient anxiety. She also covers lifestyle measures to reduce breast cancer risk: diet, movement, sleep, and managing toxins, mold, and chronic infections.
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I have a question inside of my keeping Abreast with Dr. Jen Facebook group. It comes from Amy and she's asking about radial scars. So let's talk about what radial scars are. It is named because of its appearance on mammogram and on mammogram it has kind of a starburst appearance and for lack of a better word, like looks like a radial scar. Which is why it was named that. Now on a cellular level there are some radial scars that have atypia and some radial scars that have no atypia. Atypia are abnormal cells for the radial scars. Across the board, they're always recommended to get excised. In my practice when I was a surgeon for 20 years, I did excise them. That said, in that 20 years and thousands and thousands of surgeries and probably 100 were on radial scars. I did not have one that was upgraded to cancer. Now I am not saying that my experience speaks for everything, but we were trained to believe that the reason to excise radial scars is because they could potentially degenerate into a cancer. I'm not sure that that's true, but we live in a very fear based society and so we believe that anything that has any degree of prevention is good. But we have to see the flip side of that, which is that any surgery is traumatic. And because we talk about the fact that radial scars imply an increased risk of cancer, I'm not sure that once we ring that bell for someone, even if we take the radial scar out, do we really unring the bell or does that person believe that they are at ongoing risk for breast cancer? I want to be clear. If it was biopsied and it doesn't have atypia, I'm not sure that I would do anything about it other than follow it. If, if it was biopsied and showed atypia, I would have a long conversation with the surgeon and see how comfortable they are watching it. And at the same time do all the things that you know to do which can optimize your health. So adopt a whole food plant based, low glycemic grain free diet. Then make sure that you're getting joyful movement throughout the day. Make sure that you are managing the stressors of life, that you have a big toolbox. Make sure you're prioritizing sleep, make sure you're avoiding toxins and having detoxification practices. That means filtering your water, drinking plenty of filtered water, making sure that you're moving your bowels, making sure that you're sweating and eating foods that promote liver function, Avoiding alcohol, avoiding sugar, things like that. And then making sure that you are living joyfully and purposefully. And if you know about things that adversely affect your health, if you know that you have metal in your mouth, that you have amalgams, then you need to go see a holistic dentist and make sure that your mouth is healthy, because that contributes to your breast cancer risk. If you know that you have mold in your home, you need to have that mitigated, because that contributes to breast cancer risk. If you've had chronic lyme or any chronic viral infection, chronic fatigue syndrome, any of those things, make sure that you're working on viruses, because that will affect your breast cancer risk. And so making sure that you are optimizing your environment. And that even means if you've had a history of trauma and you have not worked through that, that is something that can increase your cancer risk. Making sure that you're doing everything that you can to mitigate your risks for developing breast cancer, for promoting your health, Then you have to decide how much that knowledge of a radial scar is going to weigh on you. If it's going to weigh on you and you're going to feel emotionally better getting it out, then I think that that trumps the trau, the surgery. But if you're not too worried, then follow it. And then you avoid having the trauma of surgery. And the likelihood that this is going to progress into a cancer, especially given that you are doing all of these things to improve your health, the likelihood that that's going to progress into a cancer is pretty small. Hope this helps. Bye for now.
