Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 12/7/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hi,
Thanks so much for donating your time and expertise to this site. It's an unusually elegant and highly generous gesture to make.

I am currently a Fulbright scholar in North Africa. Before leaving the USA, I had to undergo a thorough physical exam, including a mammogram.

The mammogram came back fine, but my "breast man" kept palpating my left breast, finally muttering that scar tissue was a normal consequence of the cyst removal I had when I was 16 (I am now 60). IN addition, I injured that same breast (huge hematoma) a couple of years ago when I feel on the stairs carrying a tall pile of laundry.

I am feeling a very hard and very large something inside that breast. It might seem larger and harder because I've lost weight since I've been here.

How concerned should I be? Should I go for an ultrasound when I'm in France over the Christmas holidays? Is it possible for mammograms and manual palpation by physicians to miss malignancies that then grow hugely in a matter of just four months?

Thank you again for your help. Mange, mange tak og glaedelig jul!
LitDoc

ANSWER: Are you Danish or Norwegian? Well without an examination it is impossible to give you an accurate answer. Old scars can confuse the picture but I think you should try to have this checked in France ASAP! With ultrasound breast scans AND MRI
breast scans AND a needle biopsy of the mass you feel! That way we will KNOW what it is without guesses! Good luck/lykke till! Thanks/Mange takk! Oensker Dere en god jul og ett gott nytt aar!


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QUESTION:
Thanks for your answer. I will have it checked next week in France. Please wish me luck.
As for your question: I am American, neither Danish nor Norwegian; simply a linguist.
Thaks again.

ANSWER: You are most welcome! Thank you! Of course I do wish you luck! Please do keep me posted! Well, I'm a Swede. When I grew up (born 1945) Danish & Norwegian (both kinds of Norwegian - bokmaal = book language, a kind of norwegianized Danish, & nynorsk = new Norwegian, based on western Norwegian rural dialects and closer to Icelandic) were obligatory parts of my education in Swedish (also including ordinary Swedish Swedish and the much more arcaic Finland Swedish - both Finnish & Swedish are official languages of Finland, my Swedish teacher actually came from Finland). Though my main subjects were mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology with history and geography as important side subjects I also had 9 years of English, 7 years of German and 4 years of French. This was a rather typical Swedish GYMNASIUM education in those days. I wonder what students would say of that today? AND ALL my teachers were Ph.D.-s, some even university professors too!


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QUESTION:
I believe that even today the Scandinavian countries offer their youngsters an education that is far superior to anything our poor kids get in the States. Maybe one day we'll catch up on many different fronts -- education, the environment, health care, and so much more. Of course, educating people so they don't elect people like George Bush would be a good beginning. And I should have said "och" and not "og." :-)

Answer
I certainly can not compare education in the USA and Scandinavia, though I do know that some of the best universities of the World are in the USA. What I DO know however is that the Swedish education system has declined very much compared to when I attended school (I can check what the children of my nieces and nephews are studying since I do not have children or grandchildren of my own). And I do know that the education system in Finland which when I went to school was litterally the same as the Swedish one (Sweden & Finland were after all one and the same country for almost 700 years)is now vastly superior to the Swedish one. This is mainly due to meddling politicians, usually with very little - if any - education of their own and with very strange ideas with regards to the value of an education. Well och in Swedish og in both Norwegian & Danish (ja in Finnish - though that is an entirely different language family, as unrelated to Swedish as Japanese to English - but about 10% of Finnish words are actually borrowed from Swedish, examples: kulta = gold-guld, ranta = shore-strand, kauppa = shop from koepa = buy in medieval Swedish kaupa similar to the German kaufen). As a child I lived some time in Helsinki, Finland. Unfortunately I have forgotten most - but not all - of my Finnish.