Cancer Screenings

There’s a lot you can do to be proactive about your breast health, including completing regular screenings and annual exams. Your doctor will provide recommendations for you based on your personal and family history.

For many patients, this involves:

• Practicing breast awareness at home
• Clinical breast exams at routine wellness visits starting at age 25
• Yearly mammograms starting at age 40

To learn more about breast health, visit the Edith Sanford Breast Center website.

Schedule your mammogram today.

There are two types of cervical cancer screenings: a Pap smear and an HPV test.

Talk to your provider about screening recommendations based on your age and other factors. Women should get screened for cervical cancer starting at age 21.

Learn more about cervical cancer.

Colorectal cancer screening helps find polyps, or abnormal tissue growths, inside your colon so they can be removed before they turn into cancer.

Your screening options include:

• A colonoscopy, which is a procedure where a physician uses a scope to examine the lining of the colon.
• A fecal immunochemical test (FIT) checks for hidden blood in the stool.
• Cologuard is a type of FIT-DNA test that checks stool samples for blood and cancer DNA biomarkers.

If you’re at average risk for colorectal cancer, get screened starting at age 45. Discuss your risks and which screening options are best for you with your primary care provider.

Consider getting screened for lung cancer if you’re between the ages of 50 and 77 (age criteria may depend on your insurance company), in good health and either:

• Currently smoke or have quit in the last 15 years
• Have a smoking history of a 20 pack-year or more. A pack-year is smoking an average of one pack of cigarettes per day for one year. For example, a person could have a 20 pack-year history by smoking one pack a day for 20 years or two packs a day for 10 years.

Talk with your primary care provider about whether you should get screened for lung cancer.

Learn more about lung cancer.

If you’re a man at average risk of developing prostate cancer, ask your primary care provider about prostate cancer screenings at age 50.

If you have a family history of prostate cancer or are at increased risk for the disease, ask your primary care provider about prostate cancer screenings at age 40.

You may need to undergo skin cancer screenings depending on your personal and family risk factors.

We recommend getting familiar with your normal pattern of freckles, moles and blemishes with:

• Monthly skin self-exams
• Yearly visual skin exams by your primary care provider or dermatologist