Mammograms could help diagnose heart disease

Mammograms could help doctors diagnose heart disease.

Bunnie Gleiman said a yearly mammogram saved her life, and not from breast cancer.

Gleiman's doctors discovered she had calcifications in the arteries of her breast.

"Those calcifications are what people call hardening of the arteries," Dr. Barbara Jaeger, radiologist, said. "They're actually calcifications that form on the arteries and those can be a sign of heart disease."

Dr. Jaeger said finding arterial calcifications on mammograms is nothing new.

"Many of us thought that it had a relationship to heart disease, but it hadn't actually been studied," Dr. Jaeger said. "More recently, there have been several large studies and many, many smaller ones that have shown that there is a correlation between these vascular calcifications on arteries in the breast, because of the similar size to the arteries of the heart."

More Information

Find out more information on mammography, breast cancer, and heart disease.

Dr. Jaeger said it's a good idea for women who get mammograms to also have a heart-to-heart talk with their doctor about the health of their arteries.

That is just what Gleiman did.

"He put me on cholesterol medicine and blood pressure medicine, and I'm happy to say that I am very healthy now," Gleiman said.

Chalk up one more good reason to get screened for breast cancer.

Currently in Topeka, KS

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