Posted on 07/09/2015 12:28:55 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Breast cancer screenings may not lead to fewer deaths but may lead to overdiagnosis, U.S. researchers suggest.
In areas of the U.S. with high levels of screening, more tumors were diagnosed—but breast cancer death rates were no lower than in areas with fewer screenings, researchers report.
“The mortality results that we observed are far from definitive,” cautioned Charles Harding, the study’s lead author from Seattle, Washington.
“The most dramatic finding of our study is the immediately evident—and substantial—evidence of breast cancer overdiagnosis,” he told Reuters Health in an email. …
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
Coffee is good, coffee is bad.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
I will say the females in this family do NOT do mammograms.
You’re going to die anyway. Why try to stop it?
no ‘breast’ is safe from zer0care
Why should anyone assume credibility for this type of observational study? It’s just based on data with no experimental design.
I got a sense of where this was headed in talking to my urologist, who told me the recommendation to insurers that PSA's were being overused was made by a board that had not a single urologist as a member.
So Sarah Palin was probably wrong after all. There aren't going to be any "death panels" because it isn't ever going to get to the point where a panel would even need to make a decision. That's going to be done by eliminating sensible diagnosis and remediation altogether.
Hey, the Pope's go-to guy on climate change says there are about six billion people too many. I'm sure our betters -- the politicians and the 0.01%'ers -- will do just fine.
Too many people doing "statistical analysis" without the slightest understanding of what statistical science is or does.
Everybody has something wrong with them if you do enough tests to find the defects. This information is consistent with a study that came out about 18 months ago debunking much of what doctors thought they knew about breast cancer. But that very sound study has not been broadcast because breast cancer awareness and its pink ribbons is the cause du jour - and the money is abundant. Imagine if there were no more pink Octobers in the NFL!
I understand your annoyance at the pink ribbons crap - it drives me crazy as well. But breast cancer is lethal and mammograms are a good tool to find this disease early. My own take is that Obama is gay and couldn’t care less about women. I’m still in shock at all the money spent on HIV for what? 1% of the nation?
Now that Obamacare is paying for mammograms guess what. “They don’t detect anything so don’t bother getting them.”
And what poor wording of this article. It is not the mammogram that stops cancer. It is the treatment begun AFTER cancer is detected. Sloppy reporting.
“The findings suggest breast cancer screenings lead to overdiagnosis because they mainly catch smaller tumors, the researchers say.”
“We were troubled that we did not see evidence of a mortality benefit from screening, especially because there was no relationship between screening and advanced-stage cancer, either,” Harding said.”
This is typical relatively worthless outcomes analysis drivel that the clueless policy wonks in DC and academia (e.g. Gruber) love to quote.
1) Of course mammograms aren't going to increase the diagnosis of large tumors, since those are most often evident without the need for a mammogram.
2) How does early detection of ‘small’ tumors equate to “over-diagnosis”? You mean catching it before it becomes big and advanced is "over-diagnosis" and not preferable?
3) The study doesn't distinguish between mammography vs no mammography. It looks at the effects of a 10% increase in screening rate, and determines this increased screening catches an additional 16% of breast cancer - generally in its earlier stages. With those statistics, and given the other myriad co-variables, the bigger surprise would be if those numbers did show a definitive mortality benefit. Further, did catching the tumors at an earlier stage lead to more lumpectomies vs mastectomies? Less adjuvant chemo? etc. etc.
The bottom line is that outcomes analysis is a quasi-scientific field in its juvenile stages, often dependent upon the accuracy of large government-kept databases, and quite limited in its ‘predictive’ value (i.e. it's easier to make proclamations about what you think data show about what has already happened than it is to use that data to predict what will happen in the future if you alter practice patterns).
Despite all these limitations, these types of studies are increasingly determining what kind of care you'll receive, and whether or not it will be paid for.
Actually it is more insidious than that, they don't want to pay for treatments. Less screening ...less women need to be treated. Quite the war on women.
If cancer isn’t diagnosed until it’s too advanced to be worth treating, “the system” saves money.
Yes. This is the kind of thing Obamacare is MEANT to do, reduce access to healthcare, ironically while theoretically making it available to more people.
More expensive, less available, as we are finding out. As if that couldn’t have been predicted.
Look at the description. Sources say..... Studies lead author(s) from Seattle...... and a bunch of other “tells”
This is a preparatory government funded story in the making that will influence doctors and women to get less mammograms in the long run. Less mammograms, lest cost for ObamaCare.
The big “tell” is the phrase (paraphrased here)...”while research thus far indicates mammograms MAY not reduce breast cancer, the data are ‘noisy’ and MORE STUDY IS NEEDED.”
I’ve worked in government funded research, this is classic:
1. Get some starter funding and a sponsor wish list for the outcome,
2. Do your study, adjust as necessary for the outcome,
3. Publish the conclusions all over willing MSM and caution more money is needed to fully assure the desired result.
Academic whoring at its worst.
Well, yes. Look at PP who is all for the women, supposedly - primarily their health, right?
They do not own or operate one mammogram machine.
"..."However, our findings are quite tentative for mortality because the data are very noisy," he added. "We feel that our study raises important questions about the benefits of mammography screening, but it certainly does not answer them."
More research is needed, he said.
The researchers also warn in their paper that their findings may be limited by so-called ecological bias, which can occur when assumptions are made about individuals from data of a large group.
Uh-huh. Noisy data. They don't know key things about the population. What a stinking piece of garbage. I wonder who paid for that study.
Finding it early is not changing the mortality.
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