Breast Cancer Risk Assessment
Staying Ahead of Breast Cancer
One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer within their lifetime, and many women are at higher risk of developing breast cancer, but don’t know it. We’re committed to early cancer detection, and risk assessment can help identify high-risk women before cancer develops. That’s why we’ve implemented a risk assessment program to personalize breast care for our patients.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Breast cancer risk involves a combination of factors: personal health history, lifestyle, environmental effects and genetics.
- All these factors combine to create your individual risk, something that you should be aware of so that you can make the most informed decisions about your breast health.
Why is this important?
Mercy’s breast cancer risk assessment will help determine your lifetime risk of developing breast cancer and help us and your healthcare provider develop an individualized care plan based on your personal risk for breast cancer.
Steps in a Risk Assessment:
- Call (319) 861-7778 to schedule your annual mammogram at Mercy’s Women’s Center.
- Once you've scheduled your appointment, you will be sent (via MyChart) a link to complete your breast risk assessment questionnaire.
Most of the questions will be familiar to you, but some will be new. For family history questions, you may need to ask family member(s) on both your mother’s and father’s side who have had cancer to indicate the type of cancer and their age when they were diagnosed.
If you’ve already scheduled your upcoming appointment, login to your MyChart account and find the questionnaire located in MyChart under “Questionnaires” (Menu → My Record → Questionnaires). If you don’t have a MyChart account, you can enroll by visiting, www.mercycare.org/mychart. The questionnaire can also be completed after your scheduled appointment at the Women’s Center.
For more information about Mercy’s new breast health risk assessment or questionnaire, please contact the Women’s Center at (319) 398-6690.
