MARYVILLE, Tenn. — According to the Centers for Disease Control, at least 40% of women have dense breast tissue, and now doctors who are performing mammograms are required to tell them.
"If I had undergone additional testing with my annual mammograms that cancer would've been found at a much earlier stage," Darlene Smith, a breast cancer survivor who now advocates for cancer patients, said.
The additional testing Smith said she needed is now something doctors are being directed to tell women about following a mammogram. Smith's breast cancer diagnosis came after a tumor in her breast grew to be several centimeters big.
She said she has dense breast tissue, so a regular mammogram didn't pick it up at first.
As of September, the FDA requires doctors to tell women if they have dense breast tissue because tumors can be harder to detect, and instead, further testing like an MRI, is required.
Smith said this rule means lives could be saved.
"I went through a lot we wouldn't have had to if we had a breast MRI at the time," she said.
Smith had 19 months of treatment for her cancer, including several blood transfusions, chemotherapy, two mastectomies and radiation treatments.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and according to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 8 women will get diagnosed with the illness in their lifetime.
Its data also show that breast cancer is the most diagnosed cancer for women in the United States and is the second leading cause of death from cancer among women.
This year alone, more than 42,000 women and 500 men are expected to die from the cancer.
Smith now lobbies with the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network in Nashville and Washington D.C., asking lawmakers to find ways for people to have access to the best cancer treatments possible.
"We want treatments to be improved," she said. "People are living longer and better lives after a cancer diagnosis, but we are still losing too many, too soon. "