Re: fibrocystic beast


bae@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 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.

Since that's just what you have done here in a spectacular
demonstration of hypocrisy and distortion, I won't bother with further
comment to you.

.

Relevant Pages

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