NCI Panel: Stop Calling Low-Risk Lesions 'Cancer'. New Proposals to Reduce Overdiagnosis.
The practice of oncology in the United States is in need of a host of reforms and initiatives to mitigate the problem of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of cancer, according to a working group sanctioned by the National Cancer Institute.
Perhaps most dramatically, the group says that a number of premalignant conditions, including ductal carcinoma in situ and high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, should no longer be called "cancer."
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There is one "little" problem with all this -- when you have early detection, you can't tell whether it will progress fast or slowly and by the time you are sure, you can go buy your casket, because it's too late.
But expect to see more and more of these articles, as Obamacare expands -- doctors and people need to be "educated" so they won't seek treatment, which cost money, of course, but go and die quietly.
Ping - I noticed you are interested and post medical articles.
They’re trying to explain the skyrocketing numbers of cancer diagnosis.
Sure, cancer ‘deaths’ are going down. But at a huge expense from treatment costs. The problem is the ongoing increase in diagnosis of cancer.
More from the JAMA article:
“Physicians, patients, and the general public must recognize that overdiagnosis is common and occurs more frequently with cancer screening. Overdiagnosis, or identification of indolent cancer, is common in breast, lung, prostate, and thyroid cancer. Whenever screening is used, the fraction of tumors in this category increases. By acknowledging this consequence of screening, approaches that mitigate the problem can be tested.
Change cancer terminology based on companion diagnostics. Use of the term “cancer” should be reserved for describing lesions with a reasonable likelihood of lethal progression if left untreated. “
Over treatment? Yes, with some types of cancer.
Over diagnosis? Smells like a socialized medicine death panel decision.
Experts warn of dangers of overdiagnosis and treatment of cancer
“Improved screening has resulted in the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of cancers that are not life-threatening, without significantly reducing the death rate from the disease, and the time has come to alter how cancer is detected, treated and defined, a panel of medical experts said Monday.”
In many cases the cure is worse than the condition.
So...in other words, I should have just said “Naah, I’ll wait till my stage 3c breast cancer with 11 lymph node involvement just go till it’s REALLY serious”? Cos, ya know, it was found during a YEARLY mammogram...and it was the fast growing kind. Shoulda just waited till it showed up somewhere else...like when you tell your mom you’re too sick to go to school, and she doesn’t believe you till she SEES ya puke? Like that?
The problem is, people’s cancers are being found earlier, treated earlier, and the people go on to live longer lives. Longer lives, in this Adminstration of ObamaOcracy, are not encouraged. In fact, in some cases, they are just ended.
While I agree with your point that the real motive here is rationing health care a la ObamaCare, I disagree with the above statement.
Generally, that can be determined by the analysis of the cancer cells.
The medicine propaganda has begun. Just give us your money, we’ll tell you if you need treatment or not. By taking medicine out of the “Free Market” and handing it over to the DMV like bureaucratic organization that is controlled by the IRS there is no reason to worry about treatment.
And how much has the treatment technology improved?
Seems like the treatments are fine tuned versions of the “sledgehammer” treatments of 20/30 years ago — chemo and radiation.
For all of the money and resources spent, we don't seem to have made a lot of progress. It doesn't leave me with a great deal of confidence in the medical system. Maybe I am wrong?
Breast cancer survival in the UK versus the US is a perfect example how the bean counter methods are costing lives. The five-year survival rates for all forms of breast cancer - including the most advanced - stand at 85 per cent in the U.S and just under 74 per cent in the UK. If the cancer is caught early - at what doctors call stage 1 - the differences in survival are even more shocking. An American woman has a 97 per cent chance of being alive five years after diagnosis. In Britain, this figure is only 78 per cent. Routine breast screening in the U.S. starts at 40 rather than 50, as in Britain, and women are thoroughly checked every one to two years, rather than every three years under the NHS. link to article
Note that some nameless study group funded under Obamacare has already said that women do not need mammograms every year and that doing them every two or three years and starting at age 50 has a statistically insignificant difference in survival rates.
Looks to me like more set-up for the “death panels” to begin to do their grisly work. In re: “indolent tumor”, I’ve always thought “indolent” referred to lazy and unwilling to work folks, aka “democrats”. Had to check Websters’ dictionary to learn it also refers to “causing little or no pain”. With regard to their statement, “Thyroid cancers and melanoma are examples for which screening has expanded and, along with it, the detection of indolent disease”, it appears to me that if a cancer isn’t causing pain then a person is “good to go”. Come back and see the doctor when you have pain only to be told you are SOL. Have these paragons of healing ever heard of and practiced by the Hippocratic oath? A pox on all their houses. If my doctor had used this criteria, then I would not have returned to see him until long after my cancer had metastasized and spread throughout my body.
This crap is certainly Obama’s baby. These docs propose to redefine the terms just like Obama called the killing of 14 Americans by a Muslim terrorist at Ft. Hood “workplace violence” rather that an obvious terrorist attack by a jihadist. They propose saying a “cancer” is NOT actually “cancer” unless and until a person’s condition is “lethal” if left untreated and, apparently, in order to insure this outcome, they propose to reduce the number of screenings so that a cancerous condition won’t be found and in the event one is found, then said patients’ name is added to an “observational registries for low malignant potential lesions”.[the real SOL list] Translated: this means said unfortunate patient cannot receive treatment until said “cancer” (which hasn’t really existed up until this point) causes pain.
This is insanity.
"We are $o $orry. Plea$e $ubmit your in$urance card and we'll help make your la$t day$ of $urvival helli$h."
Ya....we’re saving too many lives with early testing and treatment.
This costs way too much.
You have a “duty to die” you know......
This message brought to you by the secularist religion of “Dirt Good, People Bad”.
Exactly right. We have been seeing more propaganda like this from the bureaucrats under HHS.
Smoke and mirrors and political agenda, sum up the article, JAMA, and the NCI.
They are trying to nit pick at everything OTHER THAN their greed and the greed of “medical administrators” and medical professionals (doctors) *and* their lawyers ... almost none of whom imagine cutting their incredible income, relative to most people (with the exception of the incredibly greedy banksters *and* *THEIR* lawyers).
NONE of the above well-paid medical and “medical” types, imagines *THEIR* not getting the testing.
NONE of the major contributors to medical systems (and to “medical ‘systems’”) ... will tolerate a cut in *THEIR* testing.
How would the big shot “medical administrators” who are trying to focus upon everything EXCEPT THEIR PAY, like to fly around or drive around in vehicles that get the same kind of testing theory?
That’s it, we’ll just “reduce”/means:*stop* testing and redefine things.
A crack in aluminum, will now be ... a “pre-fissure” and not worth mentioning anywhere UNTIL AFTER THE CRASH! ... in some footnote that a relative finds some day.
That’s right, the argument against testing, is *NOT LOGIC,* but, “Hey, we need to cut costs, and we aren’t going to take a pay cut, so we’ll just cut something ... else ...”
That is important to somebody else, like you, like your family, like your kids.
Sure.
We came all this way, developing great tools ... only to retire them to some Museum of How Great Health Care Was ... no thanks, to all the greedy “medical administrators” and their “comfort zones” that outweigh medical care in our lives.
Not to mention all so many government types who ALSO will insist upon, and get, testing for *them and theirs* ... but not you.
The net of it all, will be a *medical/”medical”* class system: the haves and the have-nots.
Pretty quickly, we are already finding, that the government class and medical class are becoming one, “or else” under ObamaCare.
Leaving the rest-of-us class, to listen to the many hundreds of thousands of that system’s-insiders preaching about, as Diane Sawyer is want to: “There are all these ‘glass’ barriers ...”
We will have some sympathy and shoulder shrugs and boo-hoo faces of those talking heads of media, medicine, political-leftists, and government, all of whom, are *inside the comfort zone of their special health care system that is exempt from ObamaCare.*
While the parents of the children in the many childrens’ hospitals, will regard the article, the JAMA, and the NIC ... as NUTS!
At 75, last time I went to the urologist he told me my PSA was fine, but at my age it really didn’t matter because anything he could do for me if cancer developed would probably do more harm than the cancer before I’d be dead anyway - very comforting (and a precursor to what we’ll be hearing more and more under Obamacare)......