Do you remember the hit TV show Boy Meets World?

Viewers used to follow Corey and Topanga through the trials of growing up.

Well, recently, Danielle Fishel, the actress who portrayed Topanga, went public with her real life struggle, a stage zero breast cancer diagnosis.

Fishel credits the discovery of her cancer to a routine mammogram.

In today's health news, we learn from an expert with Norton Women's Services what stage zero breast cancer is and why routine mammograms are so important.

Mammograms are super important for early detection.

The earlier you detect the breast cancer, the earlier stage, it's going to be the more likely that patient is to survive and the more likely that their treatment is not as involved.

There are ductal structures all through the breast, and when there are cells that line the ductal structure and when those cells turn into cancer, that is the earliest stage of breast cancer and that is DCIS.

Stage zero means that all of the cancer cells are confined within that ductal structure and they have not crossed the wall out into the rest of the breast.

And that's a good thing.

I mean, that basically means that the cancer can't have spread anywhere else in the body.

The onset of widespread screening mammography, it's decreased mortality by 40% for an average risk woman.

We recommend beginning screening mammography at the age of 40, and then you get a mammogram every year for the rest of your life.

For higher risk women, we tend to start mammograms at the age of 30.

And then we also like to do supplemental screening with breast MRI, which is very good at finding breast cancers in high risk women.

Many, many women, about 75% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have no known risk factor, no family history.

So it's super important for everybody to take ownership of your health and get that screening mammogram So important.

Dr. Lambert noted that mammograms should continue until end of life unless directed otherwise by your doctor.