Posted on 07/09/2009 7:48:06 PM PDT by presidio9
One in three breast cancer patients identified in public screening programs may be treated unnecessarily, a new study says. Karsten Jorgensen and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen analyzed breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after government-run screening programs for breast cancer started in parts of Australia, Britain, Canada, Norway and Sweden.
The research was published Friday in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal. Jorgensen and Gotzsche did not cite any funding for their study.
Once screening programs began, more cases of breast cancer were inevitably picked up, the study showed. If a screening program is working, there should also be a drop in the number of advanced cancer cases detected in older women, since their cancers should theoretically have been caught earlier when they were screened.
However, Jorgensen and Gotzsche found the national breast cancer screening systems, which usually test women aged between 50 and 69, simply reported thousands more cases than previously identified.
Overall, Jorgensen and Gotzsche found that one third of the women identified as having breast cancer didn't actually need to be treated.
Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can grow too slowly to ever affect patients. As it is impossible to distinguish between those and deadly cancers, any identified cancer is treated. But the treatments can have harmful side-effects and be psychologically scarring.
"This information needs to get to women so they can make an informed choice,"
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
As it is impossible to distinguish between those and deadly cancers, any identified cancer is treated.”
“This information needs to get to women so they can make an informed choice”
How can someone with breast cancer make an informed choice when it is impossible to tell if their cancer is the “deadly cancer”? Maybe if someone is 95, then they can take the chance.
My Mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 84 She had surgery and never really recovered from it. I am now certain that she should have had less aggressive treatment at her age.
It usually spreads slowly in the elderly and the surgery is really devastating. She died a year later. I would have spared her from all that trauma if I knew what I know now.
FYI: breast cancer comes in two flavors: fast and slow.
There is no effective treatment for the fast growing and
there is no need to treat the slow growing cause you are likely to die of something else first.
They are already pushing this with prostate cancer.
Because they're scared to death and want to live. Rationing will ruin it all.
Yes, on prostate cancer. My grandfather is in Germany and has prostate cancer. Because he has the slow growing, they will not treat him, at all, for it. He is in his 80s but has been fabulously healthy up to now. (He is still hiking and hunting!)
Hope I don't get in that situation, but I have seen a lot of people hate the chemo.
This is all about "intellectual cover"...a study to say you don't need to know if you have cancer until it's too late to do anything about it.
Morphine is the cheapest cancer treatment...and usually has to be dispensed a few months.
A long as taking it was their choice alone, I see no problem here.
No.
In this study Jorgensen and Gotzsche did not cite any funding for their study. No money trail to follow.
Americans will be made to fell guilty about the health care system we have now and willing to accept less in the future?
My lack of confidence in the MSM is exceeded only by my complete distrust of 0bama.
Government wants to choose who lives and who dies. What better way for the Fuhrer and his accomplices in the Congress to cut the Social Security costs than denying care to anyone over 50. What better way to get rid of anyone that is opposed to their rule? Deny needed medical care. ObamaCare or DeathCare is all about power over the American people. Case closed.
You nailed it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.