(WXYZ) – Although the enlarged lymph nodes are a totally normal and harmless response to a vaccine. They caused some confusion during the COVID immunization process. Especially for women.
“People started getting vaccinated in December and we were getting our health care professionals to do their mammograms and we were like, ‘Wow, that person has really enlarged lymph nodes,'” said Dr. Connie Lehman, director of imaging at Massachusetts. General Hospital In Boston.
On a mammogram, an enlarged lymph node appears as white blisters. This is also what doctors see when a cancerous tumor is spreading. And making that connection between the vaccine and the lymph nodes was important in preventing what Lehman calls “false positives”.
“We had reported this in mammography centers before, but far from the level we saw with the COVID vaccine. We think it is because the COVID vaccine creates a very strong immune response,” said Lehman, who wrote two articles on the subject in hopes of spreading the word. the message to avoid unnecessary “cancer scares” and unnecessary anxiety and testing costs.
“We want to find cancer early, when it can be treated and cured – we also don’t want to bring patients back for additional imaging, biopsies, for treatment, when they don’t actually have cancer,” said Lehman, who is the author of two articles on the connection between vaccines and lymph nodes.
“This is a normal inflammatory reaction – inflammatory health, so we want to calm the anxiety,” she said.
But does this mean that women should stop mammography to avoid confusion? Absolutely not.
Although a simple solution may seem to recommend women to be screened 4 to 6 weeks after the second vaccine – since the swelling is expected to decrease – Lehman points out that not all women have the flexibility, time or resources to just reschedule. And losing a display can be more damaging.
In the year of the COVID pandemic, the United States saw the least number of mammograms – and the advanced diagnosis of delayed breast cancer is feared.
“We will see more deaths from breast cancer because of COVID than we will see in the United States – 100 percent,” said Lehman, adding later. “It is almost impossible to avoid this unless we have a total, total effort to bring women back for a mammogram.”
Rather than rescheduling a screening, Lehman said that just make sure your doctor knows that you have been vaccinated and in which arm, so that they can keep that in mind during screening.
“The message couldn’t be clearer, get vaccinated as soon as possible, the second message is: don’t skip the screening mammogram,” she said.
It is suggested that women between 50 and 74 years old undergo mammography exams every one or two years.