I am sure that this morning's headlines (aside from Thanksgiving food, foot ball, parades, and giving thanks) will be full of the news that a new study has been released which says that '
Mammograms lead to unneeded treatment'. Gee thanks.
The study looked at test results from 1976 to 2008. The article makes two 'helpful' points:
- mammograms do not help find late stage breast cancers any sooner so the death rate from them has not gone down by much
- Between 70,000 and 80,000 women are treated annual for breast cancers that would never kill them
It also calls mammograms imperfect as they tend to over detect and find things that lead to anxiety and false positives. The current mentality is that if a cancer is found it is presumed to be deadly unless treated. So if cancer is found, we do not have a way of telling it from a deadly to a non-deadly so we treat all as if they were nasty. (Go find some patients with a tumor and ask them if we can wait to see if it kills you or goes away on its own? Not happening.)
In my mind, that is the real target. Finding ways to determine if a cancer is deadly or a cancerous tumor that is slow growing or will be reabsorbed by the body. That would be a whole new focus of research.
