Ask any woman who has been referred for follow-up after a concerning mammogram, and they’ll tell you that something strange happens to linear time while they wait for their next appointment. It slows to a painful crawl. Days drag on, weighed down with the worry of worst-case scenarios.
It’s an experience Jacquelyn DeGreeve knows well.
“The waiting is terrible. The anxiety and stress start from the point when the doctor has found something and continues to when you can actually get in for a follow-up and get results,” she says.
DeGreeve isn’t yet 50, but she has endured concern around her breast health for more than 25 years. Like about half of all women, DeGreeve has dense breast tissue, which can decrease the sensitivity of imaging. It started causing red flags during physicals in her early 20s and has been a consistent factor in her inconclusive imaging results over the years.
Those inconclusive results meant additional procedures. Sometimes it was mammogram, wait, ultrasound wait; sometimes it was ultrasound, wait, mammogram wait; sometimes it was both at the same time, followed by waiting for results. DeGreeve was grateful for the care, but until recently, she says she never felt confident in the results.
“At the end, when my physician would say ‘the radiologist isn't concerned (about anything he/she saw on the ultrasound or mammogram),’ I’d always wonder, ‘what does that really mean?’ I was never really left with a sense of being totally free and clear,” says DeGreeve.
“That's why this blood test is so fantastic because it's that added piece of assurance. It's a multifaceted approach to the investigation.”
Last fall, DeGreeve, found out about Syantra DX | Breast Cancer through a friend. She did her research, learned about the test, the company, their clinical partners and the test performance and decided to give it a try. She got a requisition and scheduled an appointment with a Syantra lab partner that provides mobile lab services. The lab technician arrived at her home and did the blood draw in minutes. She had test results two days later.
DeGreeve’s negative Syantra DX | Breast Cancer result gave her a sense of comfort that she hadn’t experienced before. Having just completed a mammogram and ultrasound a few months prior, she now had the added confidence of receiving a negative result through a completely different method.
“That's why this blood test is so fantastic because it's that added piece of assurance,” says DeGreeve. “It's a multifaceted approach to the investigation.”
This multifaceted approach is one DeGreeve believes she’ll continue after she turns 50 and is enrolled in the regular screening program. To her, it’s just part of taking responsibility for her wellbeing.
“We all have our reasons for why we need to take care of our health... There are people who rely on us to do our very best day-to-day. And to me, this was just a way to ensure that that happens.”
