Women Who Receive COVID-19 Vaccine Should Delay Regular Mammograms, Utah Doctor Says

The country’s health experts, including a prominent Utah physician, are warning women who receive the COVID-19 vaccine to wait at least a month before having a routine mammogram – due to a side effect of the vaccine that mimics a condition often seen in cancer diagnoses.

“We don’t want patients to get these false positives, to have this kind of alarm,” said Dr. Brett Parkinson, medical director of the Breast Care Center at Intermountain Healthcare.

Parkinson’s said doctors at the center, as well as doctors nationwide, noticed that some people who received the COVID-19 vaccine had had the side effect of swollen lymph nodes in the armpit or armpit area. By itself, such swelling is not serious and usually goes away within four weeks.

“Their body is developing an immune response, and that’s a good thing,” Parkinson said.

However, when such a swelling of the lymph nodes in the armpit appears during a routine mammogram, Parkinson said, a doctor would likely call a patient back for a more detailed examination. Such swelling, he said, could be a sign of metastatic breast cancer – cancer that has spread beyond the breast – or lymphoma or leukemia.

The side effect appears in 11% of patients after the first dose of the Moderna version of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 16% of the time after the second dose, Parkinson said. He added that experts expect similar results with patients who get the Pfizer version.

“We started looking at this and realized that if we didn’t do something, we were going to have a lot of patients coming back unnecessarily. [to their doctor] for those enlarged lymph nodes, ”Parkinson said.

Parkinson said signs had been put in place at the Intermountain Breast Care Center in Murray and other Intermountain sites that perform mammograms, telling patients that – unless there are other symptoms, such as a lump in the breast. their breast – they should delay mammograms for up to four weeks after getting their last dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

(For now, the last dose is the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna versions. When the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine goes live, as expected after federal approval later this month, the first dose will also be the last, Parkinson noted.)

Parkinson pointed out that if a patient exhibited other symptoms of breast cancer – a lump in the breast, or a bloody discharge from the nipple, or a peeling around the nipple – she should not hesitate to see her doctor. “We’ll go ahead and do the mammogram,” Parkinson said.

When mammography is routine, such as with an annual exam or a follow-up exam after lumpectomy, the test can be delayed, but not indefinitely, Parkinson said.

“Don’t skip your annual screening mammogram,” Parkinson said. “Postponing it for a month or two won’t have as much impact. The one-year reporter really could be. “

Women at average risk for breast cancer should have a screening mammogram at age 40, and annually thereafter as long as they are healthy, Parkinson said. Women who have a history of breast cancer in their family, such as a mother or sister, should start having a mammogram when they are 40 or 10 years old before the age at which their parent is diagnosed, whichever is earlier. contingency, he said.

Parkinson’s said the Breast Care Center does not give screening mammograms to men, who account for less than 1% of all breast cancer cases. If a man finds a palpable mass, however, he should have a diagnostic mammogram, Parkinson said.