Medical Reports: Catching Cancer

WSVN -- If breast cancer runs in your family, you spend most of your adult life wondering when and if you will get it.

Nurse: "Hi, Hortensia. How are you today?"

But doctors now have a new tool that can detect breast cancer eight years before a mammogram even shows a lump.

Nurse: "The procedure we are going to do today is a simple five-minute screening."

It's called a Halo Breast Pap Test. It actually tests breast fluids looking for pre-cancerous cells.

Dr. Simon Weiss, ObGyn: "This equipment allows us to get a few drops of fluid from the breast, and we send that fluid off to a laboratory to look for cells that show abnormalities that may suggest the presence of pre-cancer or cancer."

The fluid comes from the ducts and glands in the breast, which is where 95 percent of breast cancers start.

For patients like Jeanine, it's a welcome change.

Jeanine Dronsick: "I feel that they can detect something even sooner than mammograms and the earlier the detection the better.

This is how it works:

Nurse: "This is the cup that we are going to place on your breast. This fills up with warm water, kneads the breast a little bit. It's kind of like a breast pump."

The test takes five minutes, and you can get your results the following week. The Halo Breast Pap is designed for younger women who often have no symptoms of breast cancer.

Dr. Simon Weiss, ObGyn: "We are trying to identify women who are at risk of developing breast cancer in the future, and, at 55, we are already looking for the presence of it."

Hortensia says it was painless and is now waiting for her results.

Hortensia: "Almost like a kneading, like a cat pouncing on a little pillow. It's a weight off my back now that I've had a test done that, in the future, can prevent something else happening."

And Jeanine plans on adding it to her yearly check up.

Jeanine Dronsick: "I'd like to do it every year. Supposedly, I think it detects seven years earlier than a mammogram. Why wouldn't you want to do it?"

Diana Diaz: Keep in mind the Halo Breast Pap will not replace yearly mammograms.

Dr. Simon Weiss
4100 Hollywood Blvd., 2nd Floor
Hollywood, FL 33021
(954) 518-4100

Halo Breast Pap Test
16 Technology Drive, Suite 118
Irvine, CA 92618
949-753-7844
1-800-600-2613
http://www.neomatrix.com/