Re: fibrocystic beast

In article <1134696797.239573.117100@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
fresh~horses <fresh~horses@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>bae@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> In article <fC9of.37628$tV6.31128@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> REP <rep@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >
>> >Mammograms aren't nearly that painful, even with a cyst. Uncomfortable,
>> >yes; but not actually painful.
>>
>> I thought so too, and had had several uncomfortable but not painful
>> mammograms, and figured that people who complained about how painful
>> they are just had low pain thresholds. Then I had one that really hurt.
>>
>> I think some technicians just have bad technique. So if a person has
>> a painful mammogram, they shouldn't assume the next one is going to
>> be painful as well. But if you have fibrocystic breasts, it's probably
>> a good idea to schedule your mammograms, if possible, for the time of
>> month when your breasts are least tender.
>>
>> At any rate, a few minutes of pain is worth it if it means detecting a
>> cancer at an early, curable stage.
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
><<At any rate, a few minutes of pain is worth it if it means detecting a
>cancer at an early, curable stage.>>
>
>I don't think, with the best treatments available today, that the above
>statement is accurate.

What, it never happens that a tumor is detected, removed and never recurs
for the rest of the person's life? Of course that isn't always the case,
but it often is.

Or you don't think it's accurate that I am willing to undergo a few
minutes of pain to increase the probability that a cancer I may develop
is detected early when it may be curable? Well, I am, and many women
are. Do I think regular mammograms are a guarantee that I won't die of
breast cancer? Of course not. They have a good chance of reducing that
risk for people with my risk factors, however.

>"While 96 percent of women diagnosed at a localized stage are alive
>five years after diagnosis, this does not mean that these women have
>been cured of breast cancer.1

Well, what percentage would be alive 5 years later if they weren't
diagnosed at a localized stage? Less than 96%? A 96% chance of at
least five more years of life sounds good to me.

>Being cancer-free for five years following diagnosis is accurately
>considered a cure for some cancers. But breast cancer is an exception:
>it can and does recur at any time, though the likelihood of recurrence
>is highest in the first two years following treatment, and declines
>over time.

That's okay. If early detection gives me 5, 10, 20 years of apparent
absence of the disease before it recurs, that's a win, too. Note that
most people who get cancer are elderly, so if early detection and treatment
prevents recurrence before something else kills them, whether they were
"cured" or not gets kind of hard to define.

>Breast cancer awareness campaigns urging women to have yearly
>mammograms are based on the premise that breast cancer found early can
>always be effectively treated.

That 'always' is a red flag, you know. Somebody is about to engage in
some misleading word juggling. I really doubt anybody is claiming that
early detection always guarantees cure.

>But the complex biology of breast cancer
>means that women diagnosed with "early" breast cancer fall into one
>of three groups. One group has very aggressive disease that, no matter
>how small it is when it is found, cannot be effectively treated with
>the therapies that are currently available. These women will die of
>breast cancer eventually, no matter what treatment they are given,
>unless they die of something else first.

Perhaps early detection and treatment will prolong their lives. Even a
few years can make a big difference when you are raising children.

AFAIK, this is a relatively small subset, of mainly pre-menopausal women
who are not good candidates for mammographic screening anyway. Most breast
cancer occurs in post-menopausal women, IIRC, more than half in women
over 70 years old.

>Another group of women diagnosed with breast cancer has a type of
>either non-aggressive (indolent) invasive disease or a form of DCIS
>(ductal carcinoma in situ) that will never be life threatening.

Okay.

>The third group has a type of breast cancer that responds to currently
>available treatments. Finding breast cancer earlier does increase the
>likelihood that treatment will work for women in this group."

This is good news -- mammography can save or prolong these people's
lives.

But the information you are leaving out is what fraction of breast
cancer falls into each of these categories. If I am going to be in the
third category, I want to find out as early as possible if I develop a
breast tumor. It's very misleading not to state what fraction of
cancers detected by mammogram fall into each category.

Note that only about 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer die
of it, so about 70% either have a so-called non-threatening form,
have a treatable form and are successfully treated for it, or die of
something else before their cancer can kill them. Some of the 30%
may have an aggressive form that doesn't respond well to treatment,
while others might have been more successfully treated if their cancer
was detected earlier.

There's also the assumption here that 'cure' is everything. Current
treatments can produce remissions that last years or even decades.
This sounds a lot better than death within a year or two to me.

It looks like this "Breast Cancer Action" outfit has an agenda. The
agenda appears to be that nothing anybody does has any effect on risk
or prognosis of breast cancer, because it's all caused by evil
chemicals, so mammography is a scam, avoiding known risk factors is a
scam, making an effort to detect breast cancer early is pointless
because for some people it doesn't guarantee survival, in the absence
of a certified bona-fide Cure things that prolong life, even by many
years, are wrong or worthless or futile, etc.

It's okay to have an agenda, but to push it by misleading language
is dishonest.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: fibrocystic beast
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  • Re: fibrocystic beast
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