Dr. Sandra Pupa has a high stakes job. Pupa is a radiologist with Rush Hospital, and spends much of her time viewing mammograms at the Women's Health Care Center in Meridian, trying to detect breast cancer.

"In some cases it's not quite so obvious," says Pupa, "it just looks like a little area of tissue that maybe wasn't there on the last mammogram."

Pupa wants to get the word out to women across the area this October that mammograms save lives, because it makes her task of hunting down cancerous cells much easier.

Doctors recommend that women age 40 and over come in for a mammogram once a year, and Dr. Pupa stresses that self exams can help women detect cancer early.

"Thirty percent of cancer detected on the mammogram are the earliest form, so that is a curable disease, and it's curable without chemo."

Dr. Pupa recommends that all women conduct self exams once a month.

Tune into Healthwatch throughout October for more breast cancer awareness features.