Maybe Another Question to Ask Your Patients

Perhaps many of you are already aware of a medication called DES and its effects on women in regards to breast cancer. So maybe I should be a little embarrassed about not knowing about this medication after working in the field for so long, but I am going to assume if I haven't heard about it before, maybe there are more of you out there like myself. A friend of mine, who is also a mammographer, was in a group of mammographers from all over the country when the subject of DES somehow came up. Everyone except my friend had heard about it already and have been questioning their patients on their history sheets already. She asked me about it when she returned from her trip, I looked into it a little bit and thought I would share what I found with you. 

From about 1938 until 1971, DES, which is short for Diethylstilbestrol, was prescribed for women during pregnancy to prevent miscarriage or premature delivery. It is estimated that about 5 million to 10 million women were exposed to this drug during this time frame. In 1971, the FDA advised Doctors to stopped prescribing DES because there was evidence that it may be linked to a rare form of vaginal cancer.

According to the CDC website, they have found that women who took DES also have a modest increase in their risk of breast cancer. It is estimated that perhaps these women have about a 30 percent higher risk than the non-exposed population. The CDC website goes on to say that further research is still being conducted regarding the children of those women who took DES during their pregnancy, and also their children. So should we be asking our mammography patients if they or their mothers took DES during any of their pregnancies? I am sure that some of you already are.  If you are not screening your patients about DES, ask your radiologist if this information would be helpful to them when they are reviewing the patient's history form.