There is a similar controversy as to the merits of an annual mammography and aggressive biopsies as a way to detect and combat breast cancer. Expert opinion generally recognizes that such measures do more harm than good, with too many women unnecessarily suffering the risks of radiation and of unneeded breast biopsies and more extensive surgery. Indeed, it seems that the human body naturally eliminates many early stage tumors. In such instances, aggressive detection and surgery eliminates small tumors that would otherwise be disposed of by the body or kept from progressing.
Such findings, though well-considered and amply supported by facts, seem to leave little impression on the massive cancer screening industry. The screening labs for breast cancer and the associated fund-raising complex and its lavishly paid executives and advocates are especially powerful. Critics often get bullied and silenced, and some cancer researchers are said to have avoided the breast cancer field as too brutally political.
Most people don’t have general anesthesia but rather light sedation.