KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — When Patricia Saucedo started working as a billing specialist at Mosaic Breast Imaging in Knoxville last year, she reluctantly got her first mammogram. The young mother of four has no history of breast cancer in her family.
"I didn't want to get it at 35 because I was like, 'I have four years still.' So I waited for a little bit," she said.
When she finally decided to get screened, her exam revealed some concerning calcifications. After a biopsy, she was told she had an early form of breast cancer.
"It's a shock because you don't ever want to be told you have cancer," she cried. "It's a shock, you know?"
Saucedo made the difficult decision to get a double mastectomy. She posted about her journey on social media, pleading with others to get a mammogram.
"I urged everybody I knew that was between 35 and 40. They needed to go get screened," she said.
A recent study by medical journal JAMA Network Open suggests more women under 40 years old are being diagnosed with breast cancer. Jama Network Open found that breast cancer had the highest increase in cases for people in their 20s and 30s.
The American Cancer Society recommends women at average risk for breast cancer start screening at age 40, but they often get conflicting advice about prevention and face unique challenges once they are diagnosed.
Radiologist Dr. David Forsberg urges his patients to get checked sooner.
"Most women who get breast cancer do not have a history of breast cancer in their family at all, just 75%. If there's a strong family history of breast cancer then a woman should start screening beginning at age 30," he said.
Dr. Forsberg opened Mosaic Breast Imaging as a comfortable space for women to get their exams with state-of-the-art technology and guaranteed results in 24 hours or less.
WBIR's Heather Waliga decided to schedule a baseline mammogram at the urging of her own doctor. The 3D screening took less than five minutes, and she got her results right away.
"The way we get mammograms is we get two views, a top-down view and an angled-up view," said Dr. Forsberg, while reviewing Waliga's results. "You've got scattered tissue, and there is nothing suspicious whatsoever."
Saucedo also now has a clean bill of health after undergoing breast reconstruction.
"After the surgery, my surgeon told me that he got good clear margins, everything was gone," she said.
She wants every woman to learn their risk and consider getting a mammogram as early as possible.
"If I didn't know to get one, I still wouldn't know," she said.
Dr. Forsberg recommends women begin screening at 30 years old, with yearly MRIs if their risk is greater than 20%. Women can calculate their lifetime risk of breast cancer here.
Most insurance programs cover one mammogram between the ages of 35 and 39 years old.