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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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