Spotlight Mia Kazanjian MD. A Millennial Doctor takes on Millennial cancers

Dr. Mia Kazanjian, a breast and body radiologist, tackles a new wave of cancer hitting the women of her generation

Women under the age of 50 have an 82% higher risk of developing cancer than men in this age group, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS) Facts and Figures 2025. This startling statistic is primarily attributed to the rise in breast cancer in young women. Mia Kazanjian, MD, a board certified radiologist in private practice in Fairfield County, CT, sits down to discuss.

Dr. Kazanjian, thank you for speaking on this important subject. Let’s start off with the basics. How common is breast cancer and what is the best way for it to be found?

Breast cancer is very common; it affects about 13% of women in the US, which in 2024 was more than 300K cases. The best way for breast cancer to be found is with a screening mammogram, which women should have every year starting at age 40; younger if they’re high risk.

Are a lot of women following this recommendation?

Many are, but not enough. The most recent ACS data from 2022 shows the percentage range of women getting mammograms in the past 2 years was 58% in Wyoming to 77% in RI. So the average is somewhere around two-thirds? I want to see that number get as close to possible to 100%.

Why do you think that is the case?

One is that there have historically been different recommendations from different societies. It made everything confusing. Women should follow the annual recommendations from the American College of Radiology (ACR) which I cited. Others include lack of easy access to high quality imaging particularly in rural areas, inequities in health insurance coverage, and lack of knowledge of best screening practices. Covid-19 also really knocked women off balance. We saw some women not come back for years. The cancers we found in practice in those patients were in general bigger than what we normally find. I discussed this in the thick of it in 2021 with Vogue. That really underscores the importance of coming in every year.
Fear is a reason. Some women don’t want to come in because they feel fine, and they’re afraid to potentially not be fine. Some women don’t feel fine, and they’re afraid of finding out what’s causing them to not feel fine. They think if they suppress it, it won’t be real.
And then there are women who are so busy taking care of everyone else that they forget to take care of themselves. Sometimes these women come in with big cancers and we find out they’ve been in denial. Fear plays a role here too.

It sounds like you deal with a fair amount of psychology.

Yes. I deal with people’s lives. The good, the bad, the whole gamut. And when people get sick, they need support. They’re also more vulnerable, so I listen.

What is a day in the life like for you?

I work in Fairfield County, CT. I read a lot of 3D mammograms, breast ultrasounds, MRIs. Thousands of images. I try to find cancers as small as 1mm. I do biopsies and localizations for surgery. I move around a lot with procedures. I meet a lot of fascinating people, mostly women, some men, from all walks of life. I talk to them while I do their procedures, learn about their lives. I get to help them, and that is really cool. It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding.

Did you always know you wanted to be a radiologist?

No. I found my way here. I grew up with a lot of doctors in my family, so medicine was in the blood. I also grew up around art. I went to high school across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I used to sit on the floors of the galleries after school to do my homework. I toyed with the idea of becoming a curator. When I went to Brown as an undergrad, I took a curatorial class at RISD and I double majored in art history and bio. In med school, things began to gel and I married art history and medicine into radiology.  

Have you always been in the northeast?

No, I spent four years in Palo Alto where I did residency and fellowship at Stanford. I learned a lot out there. I’m grateful for it. More than the mountains, Napa, and the Pacific Ocean, I miss the people. I made some of my best friends there.

I heard you have the nickname “the social radiologist”

Yes! One of my initiatives is to go out into the world and help raise awareness for people to take better care of themselves. I've gone out and met doctors and patients and wound up doing several TV segments for health awareness - like CBS NY, NBC CT, and News 12, which I enjoyed. So one of my friends said one day “well, I guess you’re just a social butterfly radiologist then” and I said “I think social radiologist sounds better”, and it kind of stuck.

Let’s shift the conversation to talk about your generation and this sudden rise in cancers. Walk us through that.

We always think of cancer as a disease of the old, and now increasingly it’s a disease of the young. There are three major trends. One is that cancer is rising in people under 50, the early onset cancer - a large portion of this population Is the millennial one, but also Gen X. Two is that these early onset cancers cancers are affecting women much more than men; 2021 cancer rates for these young women were 82% higher than those for young men. Three is that the National Cancer Institute SEER program showed that breast is the most common of these early onset cancers in the US based on 2010-2019 data published in JAMA. So breast cancer is the main reason why young women are so much more likely to have early cancer than men. But there’s also colorectal, endocrine, cervical, and many others.

Are you seeing this in real life in your clinical practice?

Absolutely. I’ve had a lot more young patients recently in their 30s. Recently I had a 27yo who had an aggressive breast cancer. She felt it herself, which is typical of the cancers in this age group because they’re too young for the average screening pool. It makes it harder because it’s more likely to be felt if it’s larger, which makes it more likely to go to the nodes, and harder to treat. The key to breast cancer is to find it when it’s tiny - like 1mm - and nip it in the bud before it goes anywhere else.

What does it feel like to treat women your own age?


Historically, I’ve treated women who are in my mother’s or my grandmother’s age groups. With these younger patients, it’s like I’m treating someone who could be my sister. The younger women are in a different stage of life. Some don’t have their careers stabilized yet, haven’t amassed much wealth, are busy dating, still in school, haven’t had kids. Then they have to suddenly make really hard decisions and spend so much time and energy on it. Their health is threatened - they face surgery, radiation, freezing their eggs if they need chemotherapy. It’s very challenging. I feel privileged that I’m a part of all of this. I connect with them in the way that I can, I give them hope in the way that I can.

Well, is there any hope for these young women? If they’re too young for screening, then how can these cancers be found before they’re too large?

Yes, there’s always hope. Last spring when Olivia Munn spoke about her bilateral breast cancer, I contributed to a segment for News 12 to talk about risk assessments. Olivia’s cancers were found because she did a risk assessment on herself and had a breast MRI. The ACR recommends all women by the age of 25 have a risk assessment. The Tyrer Cuzick is one of the more robust ones. It can be taken online and then should be interpreted with the help of the woman’s doctor - OBGYN or PCP. If a woman has a higher than 20% risk of breast cancer, she can start having mammograms alternating with MRIs at the age of 30. This can help catch a lot of the early onset cancers.
Also, this is not necessarily well known but important. Some states have laws which mandate major insurance companies to cover screening mammogram baselines for women aged 35-39 who are at average risk. These laws exist in several states, including NY and CT. I encourage women to take advantage of this. It helps me as a radiologist to have a baseline to which to compare.

What else can young women do?
Live healthy lives. Go back to the basics. Don’t smoke. Drink less alcohol. Exercise. Keep a healthy weight. Eat a lot of vegetables and whole grains. Go to the doctor every year for preventative care, not just when you’re sick, and keep up with screenings. Although I have to say that some of the best advice I get from my 90 something spry patients. Every time I meet someone over 90 I say so what’s your secret. And inevitably they say that they have a sense of humor. I think that might be the secret sauce.