Interesting research on the over diagnosis of breast 'cancer' due to mammograms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most women I know dutifully go each year for their mammogram. Most women I know also drink alcohol fairly regularly, are overweight, and eat a lot of junk and too few fruits and vegetables. Too much emphasis on early detection and pink ribbon campaigns and not nearly enough prevention, IMHO.

If only it were true. I'm a breast cancer survivor who has posted on this thread -- I had node-positive cancer. When I was diagnosed I had been a vegetarian my entire adult life, I was physically fit -- a runner -- and not at all overweight, I was not a person who ate junk food, at all, and as for drinking if you count two or three glasses of wine in a week as "regular" I guess I did that. No family history. Prevention is the dream but we just aren't there yet. Diet and exercise can help around the margins. Probably some breast cancers every year can be prevented through better diet and exercise. But not most of them. Just as you can't assume you are safe if you have no family history, you can't assume you are safe if you have a healthy lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most women I know dutifully go each year for their mammogram. Most women I know also drink alcohol fairly regularly, are overweight, and eat a lot of junk and too few fruits and vegetables. Too much emphasis on early detection and pink ribbon campaigns and not nearly enough prevention, IMHO.

If only it were true. I'm a breast cancer survivor who has posted on this thread -- I had node-positive cancer. When I was diagnosed I had been a vegetarian my entire adult life, I was physically fit -- a runner -- and not at all overweight, I was not a person who ate junk food, at all, and as for drinking if you count two or three glasses of wine in a week as "regular" I guess I did that. No family history. Prevention is the dream but we just aren't there yet. Diet and exercise can help around the margins. Probably some breast cancers every year can be prevented through better diet and exercise. But not most of them. Just as you can't assume you are safe if you have no family history, you can't assume you are safe if you have a healthy lifestyle.

I agree with most of what you say and I am not at all trying to blame the victim. However, given that more than two thirds of this country is overweight or obese, I still believe that more healthful diet would make a difference at the population level. The government currently recommends 9 servings of fruits and veggies a day. And if you exclude french fried potatoes and ketchup, how many of us really do that?! Even vegetarians tend to fill up on grains rather than true veggies. So my point is not that mammograms are bad, just that they are insufficient. Best wishes to you and may you continue to thrive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most women I know dutifully go each year for their mammogram. Most women I know also drink alcohol fairly regularly, are overweight, and eat a lot of junk and too few fruits and vegetables. Too much emphasis on early detection and pink ribbon campaigns and not nearly enough prevention, IMHO.

If only it were true. I'm a breast cancer survivor who has posted on this thread -- I had node-positive cancer. When I was diagnosed I had been a vegetarian my entire adult life, I was physically fit -- a runner -- and not at all overweight, I was not a person who ate junk food, at all, and as for drinking if you count two or three glasses of wine in a week as "regular" I guess I did that. No family history. Prevention is the dream but we just aren't there yet. Diet and exercise can help around the margins. Probably some breast cancers every year can be prevented through better diet and exercise. But not most of them. Just as you can't assume you are safe if you have no family history, you can't assume you are safe if you have a healthy lifestyle.

I agree with most of what you say and I am not at all trying to blame the victim. However, given that more than two thirds of this country is overweight or obese, I still believe that more healthful diet would make a difference at the population level. The government currently recommends 9 servings of fruits and veggies a day. And if you exclude french fried potatoes and ketchup, how many of us really do that?! Even vegetarians tend to fill up on grains rather than true veggies. So my point is not that mammograms are bad, just that they are insufficient. Best wishes to you and may you continue to thrive.

Weirdly enough most of the women that I've known with BC are not overweight junk food eating drinkers. There is a tendency to point the finger at overweight people - "If they would just maintain a healthy weight this wouldn't be such a problem". But it is not the simple. Never has been. Thin people get sick too.

[Anonymous]

http://www.brightpink.org/knowledge-is-power/assess-your-risk/

Please note that in addition to family history, what you weigh, what you eat, whether you exercise, whether you drink ... all are risk factors. Everyone knows (I think) that you can be the unlucky one even without even one of those risk factors. But on a population level (that is, when looking at hundreds of millions of women), they do make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest issue is the number of women treated with toxic drugs, surgery and radiation due to fear of lawsuits (and for the woman, fear of death).

In addition, mammography has such a high sue-rate that doctors add more tests to protect themselves. And who can blame them?

It's such a double-edged sword.

I just stay away from the scam.

I have posted skepticism of mammograms (though I also pointed out that breast MRIs are an excellent tool for women with dense breasts) but I can't abide the conspiracy theories here. The toxic drugs, surgery and radiation saved my life when I was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. The treatments suck but for most women they work and they're the best we have. And the only reason we have them at all is because of the breast cancer movement started in the 1970s by WOMEN themselves who were sick of the fact that there were no effective treatments available, just, essentially, the luck of the drawer.

I posted early in about the lack of confidence in the current screening tools for dense breasts. MRIs provided me with ZERO peace of mind that there wasn't a hidden cancer in my non-affected breast. MRIs have a high rate of false positives. I am baffled why you keep noting (falsely, I think) that they are an "excellent" tool. Can you point to any studies showing this? That is a genuine question. I encourage you to jump over to the breast cancer forum and read the stories of women who elected mastectomy only to find out an invasive cancer was in that same stage 0 breast.

Threads like this frustrate me because many women who have not walked in these shoes judge the choices of BC survivors. And, no, I don't distinguish between the stage 0's and the higher stages among us. You have no idea if you would choose to be over treated until you hear those dreaded words...until you then look at your spouse...until you look at your children...your loved ones...consider your future. You just don't know! All you get is probabilities from doctors, nothing more. Sure you can go the additional screening route and have alternating ultrasounds, MRIs or mammograms every six months or every three months if that makes you feel better. Then add in a biopsy or two to go along with those evey year. That option did not work for me. I had had enough trauma, real trauma being scanned and biopsied after diagnosis. I even posted back then about the horrific biopsy where a nurse casually stated, "We must've blown through a nerve!" The pain...the blood...OMG!

I love a discussion that empowers us to be better informed about the latest data, thus allowing an individual to make the best choice for her. But can that be had in the absence of the "tsk tsk" finger shaking from those who have never been diagnosed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Mammogram radiation is a known cause of cancer"?? Really?
I've never heard/read that the radiation in a mammogram has been proven to cause cancer.

Have a statistician or mathematician look at the studies. My DH advised me to wait to get a mammogram and not listen to the doctors. His Mom died of breast cancer and, after looking at the numbers, he believes that aggressive use of mammograms may lead to more cancer than they prevent, if you don't have other risk factors. I've wondered if the recent announcement (last year or two) upping the age to start mammograms again has anything to do with this. News articles weren't too specific.

[Anonymous]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22184734

To prevent one death from breast cancer, one must screen 400 women annually over a 10 year period. 4,000 mammograms to save one life. If you or someone you love is that one person, I will not debate the absolute value of mammograms. But step back and consider the dollar cost of those 4,000 mammograms. And while I do not have the statistics handy, I am quite sure that more than one false positive accompanied by unnecessary treatment is associated with those 4,000 screens.

Even reducing screening to every other year seems like a reasonable tactic. A decision for each of us to make without pressure from the pink ribbon crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22184734

To prevent one death from breast cancer, one must screen 400 women annually over a 10 year period. 4,000 mammograms to save one life. If you or someone you love is that one person, I will not debate the absolute value of mammograms. But step back and consider the dollar cost of those 4,000 mammograms. And while I do not have the statistics handy, I am quite sure that more than one false positive accompanied by unnecessary treatment is associated with those 4,000 screens.

Even reducing screening to every other year seems like a reasonable tactic. A decision for each of us to make without pressure from the pink ribbon crowd.

PP with mathematician DH here: I've decided to wait until I am 50 (or thereabouts) to have a mammogram and resist the pressuring of the doctors. At that point, I will decide how frequently to go back for rescreening, but it will not be every year-unless there is a condition they need to watch.

All women I have know who have had breast cancer have discovered it themselves, except one, even though they had regular mammograms. The one exception, was found during a routine screening and I honestly believe she would have lived longer and had a better quality of life if she had just not known. All my friends who discovered breast cancer before they were 50 died from it--unless they immediately had a double mastectomy. Most were fit and ate well. Most of my friends who are overweight have not had breast cancer so far. Again, these are personal experiences, highly variable, and may not mean much in the long run at all.

But the statistics, plus my friends experiences, have led me to opt out of the "pink ribbon crowd" and just screen and support research for all cancers.

[Anonymous]

http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/how_many_lives_mammograms_save.aspx


This article is one doctor's opinions regarding the questionable value of mammograms. I provide it because it gives good medical journal citations at the bottom that one can go read directly on pubmed ... original data that is unfiltered by a biased writer and more fully discussed than you will ever find on a "news" outlet can be helpful for personal decisions of this importance.

[Anonymous]

I think our grandchildren will view our political and "medical" approach to cancer, as something out of the dark ages.

[Anonymous]

PP, just saw this link to a TED talk on one of my facebook friends page--many women in her family have died of breast cancer and it's a topic that concerns her deeply. I was fascinated:

http://www.ted.com/talks/deborah_rhodes
"Working with a team of physicists, Dr. Deborah Rhodes developed a new tool for tumor detection that's 3 times as effective as traditional mammograms for women with dense breast tissue. The life-saving implications are stunning. So why haven't we heard of it? Rhodes shares the story behind the tool's creation, and the web of politics and economics that keep it from mainstream use."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Mammogram radiation is a known cause of cancer"?? Really?
I've never heard/read that the radiation in a mammogram has been proven to cause cancer.

Have a statistician or mathematician look at the studies. My DH advised me to wait to get a mammogram and not listen to the doctors. His Mom died of breast cancer and, after looking at the numbers, he believes that aggressive use of mammograms may lead to more cancer than they prevent, if you don't have other risk factors. I've wondered if the recent announcement (last year or two) upping the age to start mammograms again has anything to do with this. News articles weren't too specific.

What is the suggested age? My Dr.s wanted me to go in right at 40 for a baseline and then I got a form letter with my results that I should schedule one every year if over 40. Are docs just ignoring the latest studies and still trying to make money? What is going on?
*I don't even know what the latest studies say!

[Anonymous]

Doctors really aren't trained to be concerned with each person's fluctuating circumstances. They simply don't have the time, or the interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest issue is the number of women treated with toxic drugs, surgery and radiation due to fear of lawsuits (and for the woman, fear of death).

In addition, mammography has such a high sue-rate that doctors add more tests to protect themselves. And who can blame them?

It's such a double-edged sword.

I just stay away from the scam.

I have posted skepticism of mammograms (though I also pointed out that breast MRIs are an excellent tool for women with dense breasts) but I can't abide the conspiracy theories here. The toxic drugs, surgery and radiation saved my life when I was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. The treatments suck but for most women they work and they're the best we have. And the only reason we have them at all is because of the breast cancer movement started in the 1970s by WOMEN themselves who were sick of the fact that there were no effective treatments available, just, essentially, the luck of the drawer.

No problem with truly sick women receiving treatment. 20% of women are being treated for DCIS that don't need that treatment. That flags a research area - as in needs more

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you get your doc to agree to a breast MRI if nothing abnormal is there? I have dense breasts and have had a few call-backs and decided aftr the last one that mammogram doesn't make sense for me. Should I push to get yearly/bi-yearly breast MRI instead?

S
3-D mammography is better for your situation