Crisco celebrates breast cancer 'awareness to action' day

State Sen. Joe Crisco, left, with Nancy and Joe Cappello. / Submitted photo

As a policy leader in making Connecticut a global trailblazer in breast cancer early detection and treatment, state Sen. Joseph Crisco Jr., D-Woodbridge, today joined breast health advocates from Connecticut and the region to celebrate the Third Annual Breast Cancer Awareness and Action Day in Hartford, which recognizes Connecticut’s leadership in breast density education and legislation.

The event was hosted by Dr. Nancy M. Cappello, a breast cancer survivor and the director and founder of Are You Dense, Inc., a nonprofit group dedicated to educating the public about the risks and screening challenges of dense breast tissue and its impact on missed, delayed and advanced-stage breast cancer.

Dense breast tissue is comprised of less fat and more connective tissue, which appears white on a mammogram. 

Cancer also appears white - thus tumors are often hidden by the dense tissue. Two-thirds of pre-menopausal women and a quarter of post-menopausal women have dense breast tissue.

“Joe Crisco is my legislative champion. Without our champion legislators, we would not be here, nor would we have 24 states that have mirrored our work from 2009,” Dr. Cappello said.

“With Senator Crisco’s understanding of the science, and his understanding that his job as a legislator is to protect the safety of our citizens, we went to work on this. And in 2009 we became the first state in the nation to require disclosing density to a patient through their mammography report.”  

“The thing we have to remember above all is the thousands of women whose lives have been saved, and the pain and suffering that has been avoided or minimized, due to our laws and the work of Nancy Cappello and her husband Joe,” Crisco said. “It has been a team effort, and it has been eminently rewarding."

As Senate Chair of the Insurance Committee, Crisco has led the legislature in passing two important laws to help ensure women’s breast health: requiring insurance companies to cover an ultrasound or an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) for women with dense breast tissue, which can obscure cancerous tumors in an otherwise standard mammogram.

This is a press release from Crisco's office.