Vast Study Casts Doubts on Value Of Mammograms

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/health/study-adds-new-doubts-about-value-of-mammograms.html?_r=0

One of the largest and most meticulous studies of mammography ever done, involving 90,000 women and lasting a quarter century, has added powerful new doubts about the value of the screening test for women of any age.

It found that the death rates from breast cancer and from all causes were the same in women who got mammograms and those who did not. And the screening had harms — one out of five cancers found with mammography and treated was not a threat to the woman’s health and did not need treatment like chemotherapy, surgery or radiation.

The study, published Tuesday in The British Medical Journal, is one of the few rigorous evaluations of mammograms conducted in the modern era of more effective breast cancer treatments. It randomly assigned Canadian women to have regular mammograms and breast exams by trained nurses or to have breast exams alone.

Researchers sought to determine whether there was any advantage to finding breast cancers when they were too small to feel. The answer was no, the researchers report.

[840high]

1. My exam was fine. Cancer detected on

mammogram. I'm all for them.

[Gravitycollapse]

3. That isn't a counter argument to the OP.

[diane in sf]

2. It soesn't make sense to repeatedly x-ray a body part that may be prone to cancer. If you have dense

breast tissue, you'll end up getting a sonagram anyway. Thermography can detect excess blood vessel growth long before cancer is evident. Smashing the breasts flat can break open encapsulated cancers and let them spread. The human touch is as sophisticated and sensitive a detection a device as any other.

[ohheckyeah]

4. I've had this argument with my doctor...

finally, a real study to back my argument up. My mom had a mastectomy for something that she shouldn't have had it for, all thanks to mammograms. Why would anyone think it is a good idea to smash delicate breast tissue and radiate it?

[liberal_at_heart]

5. Just like birth control women are never going to give up their mammograms.

I don't care what study comes out. Women know the value of a mammogram and there is no way they will allow anyone to take that away from them. I have the BRCA 1 gene mutation. I lost my mom to breast cancer when I was 3. She was 32. I have had mammograms and I had preventative surgery to lessen my chance of getting breast cancer. Now my daughter who is 19 will be getting tested soon and if she is positive she will be getting preventative screenings as well. I have told her at her age she needs to be requesting digital mammograms.

[ladyVet]

6. This study may be correct. I don't know.

What I do know is that my mother's fast-growing, super-malignant cancer was found very early, when it was two spots each smaller than the head of a pin. She had a partial mastectomy, chemo and radiation, and is alive today, nearly two years later, and no signs of further disease (knock on wood).

[bemildred]

7. About what I'd expect, a wash.

[HappyMe]

8. I'm still all for them.