505 U2 A1 Medicine Writing Assignment: Cancer Screening

Cancer Screening
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Cancer Screening
For any MSN prepared nurse, being knowledgeable about epidemiology and its application into preventive screening guidelines is essential in many clinical settings such as nurse practitioner, informatics, administrative and education arenas. In this case, screening is a secondary preventive mechanism. Accordingly, this paper seeks to present a screening methodology from the National Clearing House guidelines on a patient with a breast cancer condition. Although the screening is a preventive measure, it may as well be a diagnostic tool in some situations.
The Guideline, the Correct Application of the Screening, and the Epidemiology behind the Guidance
The population eligible for breast cancer screening using the film mammography method includes women aged between forty to forty-nine years. The recommendation for screening in this age bracket is to personalize the decision before the start of biennial screening depending on the situation of a patient and the results. The second age bracket is women aged between fifty and seventy-four years whereby the recommended period of screening is after every two years. The last age bracket for this type of breast cancer screening is women aged above seventy-five years where there are no specific recommendations due to insufficient evidence (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2014). There is a suggestion for evaluation of risks for women aged more than forty years who are not at increased risk in cases of a known genetic mutation or a medical history of chest radiations. The correct application of screening is by means of standardization of film mammography. The epidemiology behind the guidance is the fact that the use of film mammography has resulted in improved quality of screening. There is substantial evidence that screening by film mammography decreases breast cancer mortality especially for women aged between fifty and seventy-four years (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).
Epidemiologic Data
The epidemiology of breast cancer has evidently changed over the previous few years. According to estimations, more than three million women in the United States had a history of breast cancer by the beginning of the year 2014. It has become the most common type of cancer diagnosed among roughly 182,000 women yearly in America (Rojas, & Stuckey, 2016). This accounts for about twenty-six percent of all prevalent cancers among women. Every year around forty thousand women die due to breast cancer. This makes breast cancer the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among American women following lung cancer. There has been a change in the incidence of cancer over time and it varies among populations, gender and race. The incidence rates rose steadily until 2002 followed by the observation of a rapid drop (Rojas, & Stuckey, 2016).
Risk Factors
The risk factors for breast cancer comprise of reproductive, environmental and lifestyle factors such as postmenopausal obesity, breast-feeding, alcohol consumption and the use of combined estrogen as well as progestin menopausal hormones. Other factors include...