Please read - food for thought!

[stressy_messy]

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 .

Melxx

[danielafederic]

Thanks Linda, I am not giving up hope, just getting out of the woods, six months since my diagnosis today, and it is a natural "process" to be scared at this stage. I just don't like scaremongers...

[danielafederic]

Well, I missed a mammogram too, and it was because I could not afford it, since I was too young for NHS screening despite familiarity and therefore I had to go privately (my GP said if you don't go privately, you take your chances). I didn't even have a lump, just my nipple was really itchy and looked "full" - it was because the cancer was pulling from the inside- and my GP wanted to give me a cream for dry skin, so I went privately because thankfully mu husband's insurance covered it, or I could have waited a year and have metastatic cancer everywhere ... but then the article you think to be food for thought says it doesn't mean I will live to tell the story to my grandchildren... I think there is a lot of politics in that article and it is just a stupid journalist having a go at a system - in the US- and has got nothing to teach us.  I have a first class Bachelor of Science in Criminology and sociology and studied social sciences at university in ITaly, including statistics and social research methods, and what I know for sure is that the way the author throws numbers here and there to make her point is just not good enough anyway: it is a generic, skewed and ill-informed article which should not appear on this website, where people join who want to think that they caught their cancer early and therefore they were smart and might survive.

Besides, I really don't see how having a mammogram could be a bad thing. I was diagnosed with DCIS at first, but after the first lumpectomy one of the margins wasn't clear, so they did another lumpectomy and found invasive carcinoma, which they would have missed if they had decided that DCIS wasn't cancer...

[cornishgirl]

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.

What the Breast Screening Review Mean's.

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-help/about-cancer/cancer-questions/what-the-breast-screening-...

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 

[poemsgalore]

I too was dx with ductal invasive, grade3, and vascular invasion. It hasn't removed my hope. It is just pointing out than sometimes these screening measures don't make any difference to the number of women who go on to have bc.  It's not a reflection on how many will go on to die - just that they may have found the cancer themselves and undergone the same treatment, even if they didn't have screening.  There are hundreds of women each year dx with bc, that are too young to have undergone any screening. i missed a mammogram because I had serious health issues which at that time were more important to me. I found my lump 2 years later, so it would not have been picked up at the mammogram if I had gone ahead with it, and by the time I was due my next one, it might have been too late.

[danielafederic]

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?

[poemsgalore]

Hi Jenanne

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.

Wishing you well

Poemsgalore xxx

[Guest user]

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. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/our-feel-good-war-on-breast-cancer.html?pagewanted=1