What do you think about this news about mammograms?

It confirms what I have believed for a long time. Maybe I wanted to beieve it because I hate going for mammograms and avoid doing it. Now I can avoid them without feeling irresponsible.

I don’t think this is news. Have you read this article (from 2009) as well?
I’ve been screened from an early age because my mom and grandmother both had breast cancer at a young age. Guess what—didn’t help. I ended up with a tumor elsewhere.

It is a subject that has been too close and painful to be unbiased.
I am on both sides of this.
While any test that can give you some kind of screening should be a good thing, overdoing it if there are other measures to screen that are less costly would help divert funds to other areas of research and other cancers.
There are few screens that are done without symptoms, yet a baseline periodically should be based in statistics and not hype.
I would be one for doing a full body scan to have a baseline because many of the cancers are slow growing and by the time they are caught, they are stage III or IV and the treatments are very invasive and life changing.
I have know a few friends with cancer that cringe everytime they see the pink ribbon over the top movements take funds from their cancers.
There are people with symptoms that can’t even get a proper diagnosis or a scan.
such a tough subject and GQ.

For the women whose mammogram does save their lives I suppose you would have a hard time convincing them that they weren’t a good idea, but in the end it is about risk and probability. If we, as a country, want and need to bring down the costs of medical care then I would have to agree, that the 5 billion dollars spent annually on mammograms in the U.S. very well could be put to better use. Even a fraction of that kind of money spent annually for breast cancer research would probably save more women’s lives in the long run.

When mammograms first became popular, I saw a French documentary that told how utterly useless they are unless you have a professional compare each and every mammogram everytime you get one for preventive care.

It astound MDs when they tell me I need to get a mammogram and I say no. I had one young female doctor tell me I needed a mammogram and at my age I need to start taking calcium pills. I asked her if something showed up on my blood work that showed a need for calcium. She said no, but since I was (at the time) approaching 50, I needed calcium. It was a round and round conversation that she couldn’t understand any point that I was making about eating a balanced diet and that I took more than my the RDA of calcium.

Well…I might just skip a year, at least. ;-)

A preventive mammogram picked up a tiny tumour in my mother’s breast. The fact that it was caught so early was a key factor in her positive prognosis.

You’ll have a hard time convincing her that mammograms are next to useless.

On the other hand, the data suggests that she’ a one-in-a-thousand screenings kind of lucky. I guess I’ll take those odds.

Do mammograms do any harm? If not, and if they have the potential to pick up some cancers, I would rather have one. I don’t think this report goes into enough detail about the pros and cons for me to decide to skip having a mammogram.

Also, the report shows “Translated into real numbers, that means screening mammography helps 4,000 to 18,000 women each year.” That is as the writer suggests definitely not an inconsequential number. Furthermore, the report goes on to say there are some “aggressive cancers, so-called bad cancers, that are deadly whether they are found early by screening, or late because of a lump or other symptoms.” The report doesn’t say whether finding the cancer early because of a mammogram might lead to a longer life expectancy. Certainly the woman might not be cured and might die because of the tumour found, but if they get even a year or two or more with their loved ones, that would be worth the inconvenience and discomfort of having a mammogram I would think.

“Screening is but one of the tools that we have to reduce the chance of dying of breast cancer,” Dr. Esserman said. This is my view too. It is one of the tools I have to hopefully keep myself healthy. I certainly don’t see it as a miracle cure-all. It is a tool. I think, until I hear there is a downside in terms of my actual health, the hour I have to spend in the women’s health clinic once every two years (we have a free mammogram every other year here) is worth the effort.

On the subject of calcium, I recently read this… I stopped getting all wound up about the medical-pronouncement-du-jour many years ago, when they tried to tell me my morning coffee was bad for me.

@ccrow, thank you for the link. That is exactly what I’ve tried to tell several doctors. But, what do I know?