Today breast cancer is the second highest cause of death in ladies, after lung cancer. As a consequence, annual breast mammograms have become common for women over 40, or anyone at heavy risk of developing this dangerous, disfiguring disease.
Now that plans like this are established, experts had anticipated that the amount of cases of complicated breast cancer would drop off, but that's just not occuring.
Instead the prevalence of breast cancer appears to have gone up since universal screening became part of our annual examinations. Why?
Women know that early identification of breast cancer can reduce deaths, but that doesn't mean going for that yearly mammogram any less nerve wracking or uncomfortable.
We live with the testing as we've been told we want to find lumps when they are too small to feel or bring symptoms, before they've a chance to grow and cause trouble.
But do all cancers lead to problems?
Late last year a massive Norwegian study of mammography screening for breast cancer discovered that some aggressive cancers may spontaneously regress given time, leaving no sign that they were ever present in a girl's body.
Ao it makes you consider, now that we are able to screen for it, if this kind of cancer isn't over diagnosed or over treated .
This latest BMJ report quoting an over-diagnosis rate for intrusive breast cancer of 35% could truly have you re-considering that yearly mammogram.
Besides this type of cancer, over-diagnosis has additionally been mentioned for carcinoma of the prostate as well as neuroblastoma, melanoma, thyroid cancer and lung cancer.
The latest work on over-diagnosis comes from researchers out of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen.
The team analyzed the findings of studies that lasted a 14-year period. 7 years before public mammography screenings were available, and seven years after government administered mammography-screening programs were running in 5 different countries ( Great Britain, Canada, New South Wales, Australia, Manitoba, Sweden and areas in Norway )
They uncovered an over-diagnosis rate of 52% for all cancers, 35% for aggressive breast cancer.
The data reports an increase in breast cancer incidence just after the screening programs were established.
What this work suggests, as did the Norwegian study before it, that maybe not all cancers need to be treated, some may grow too slowly to impact a patient, while others may regress on their own.
It's important to grasp that no doctor or current screening technique can notice the difference between a cancer that's's dangerous and one that might not be.
In a BMJ editorial that's's published along with the analysis, professor of medication Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Research understands the problem of over-diagnosis, understanding the injury and apprehension a woman lives with after being given such news by her doctor.
Surgery and chemical treatment bring their own set of problems that are physically stressful and emotionally hard, and an appalling trial for patients and families. Particularly those whose cancers might not have needed to be treated at all.
While this latest research is still not an reason, or recommendation, to postpone your yearly mammogram, it does raise some nagging questions.
Till we know more, each woman has to choose for herself whether to keep on with annual breast mammograms, but it is clear that screening has let us spot earlier cancers and kick-off treatment earlier and save many peoples lives.
Article Source: http://www.itechnoworld.com
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