This recent article ‘The Problem with Pink - Our feel - good war on breast cancer’, is well worth a read.
It addresses many aspects of breast cancer, from ‘early detection’ to ‘low funding for metastatic disease research’.
Having read many times over, on various forum threads, posts about DCIS & mammograms, BC ‘awareness’, concerns over BC spread, ‘prophylactic mastectomy’, lack of focus on & support for secondary BC , etc. - this article makes you think and provides facts about BC in 2013.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, I hope others read it too.It certainly is food for thought. How often on these very forums have I read the wishes of younger women to have screening earlier. Sure, for some it might save lives, but as this article points out - deaths from breast cancer are still happening, regardless of any screening that might take place.
I read it, and honestly, it killed my hopes, as a breast cancer survivor. I wanted to have preventative mastectomy in 2011, the surgeon said there was no reason. In march this year I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, tiny as tiny can be, but one lymphatic gland was affected. I thought “well, early stage, high survival”, until I read the article. What is wrong with you?
Ummmmm, I always find these articles in the media to be scaremongering and most likely to be a tad propaganda ,I’ve never really understood the controversy over the breast screening program,as let’s be honest ,untill the medical profession have access to a reliable test which show’s which DCIS or Breast Cancers will not** ** go on to harm someone in their lifetime , i think it is a pointless exercise , it likely will just cause more anxiety and worrying, as will plant the seed’s of doubt in many people’ mind, the consequences of this is many might decide against breast screening ,potentially, therefore delaying an early Dx ,and putting their lives at far more risk in the long run.
An independent review in the Lancet, "found that routine breast screening leads to a 20% relative risk reduction compared with no screening. This means for every 235 women invited for screening, one breast cancer death will be prevented, representing 43 breast cancer deaths prevented per 10 000 women aged 50 years invited to screening for the next 20 years, Of the roughly 307 000 women aged 50—52 years who are invited to begin screening every year, just over 1% would have an overdiagnosed cancer in the next 20 years. " The report state’s, the latest and best available systematic review, shows that the UK breast-screening programme extends lives and that, overall, the benefits of screening outweigh the harms.
danielafederick, Please,Please don’t let articles like this one online take away your hope’s , breast cancer is surrounded by controversy , questioning debate’s, fact’s and misconceptions, there’s even a fair amount of complete hokum out there online surrounding this disease , you have given yourself the very best chance of a sucessfull outcome in finding your breast cancer early, and by getting it treated. Linda :womanwink:
I really don’t think this article is relevant it is just an american journalists rant and in my view it really shouldn’t be on every category of the forum. One post maybe in the “current issues and hot topics” thread (if it’s still on here) would of been enough but not every category it’s just scaremongering .