CORNING, N.Y. (WETM) – In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, local health providers at Guthrie Medical Corning Centerway share their cancer surviving stories and give advice for screening and other treatments.

Bernadette Rohl, a Guthrie Provider for Family Medicine and cancer survivor, briefly shared her experience and what she had to go through. This happened as the Food and Drug Administration plans to release new regulations for better screening options.

“As it were, I had breast surgery,” said Bernadette. “I had a lumpectomy, and I had radiation treatments. I did radiation treatments for a little over three weeks.”

Health providers like Bernadette say it is important to ask your local provider how early you should get a screening test if cancer is suspected. To put in short, the earlier the screening, the better.

“The importance in screening and following the screening recommendation is because if cancer is caught early, it’s likely to lead to better outcomes,” said Julie Lynch-Raymond, Oncologist and Guthrie Provider. “For example, stage 1…early breast cancers…five year survival rates right now are about ninety-nine percent.”

Guthrie Health has a High Risk Breast Program that provides mammogram screening tests for all breast cancer patients. The tests are basically high risk tools that determine if the patient is at high risk for breast cancer. If the risk score is higher than a 20% lifetime risk for breast cancer, then the patient is put at a higher risk pool.

Guthrie Health Providers are available to discuss cancer risks, screening options and genetic testing. Providers and other information can be found here.