Mammogram Screenings
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The new recommendations for mammograms have stimulated many breast care conversations.
Who do you know whose breast cancer diagnosis occurred only because it was detected through a mammogram screening?
What was her age at the time of detection?
My breast cancer diagnosis did not occur as a result of a mammogram.
I was 55 when the diagnosis was made.
My regular mammograms beginning at age 40 did not reveal any suspicious areas, but the high density of the breast tissue at that age always resulted in ultrasounds that always produced suspicious areas that were followed closely and, at times, biopsied. None of these follow-ups found cancerous growths, but they were the source of multiple sets of distress and anxiety. These experiences resulted in my being less concerned about changes in breast tissue that I observed and in my increasing time lapses between mammograms.
The current mammogram screening recommendations fit well with my experience both in terms of the futility of mammograms at an early age and the associated negative impact raised by efforts to find cancer when breast tissue is dense.
When this came out, I was outraged. They seem to have broken it down into statistics, taking away the human side of it. Being the analytical guy that I am, I did some research of my own. They say that women in their 40’s are found to only have breast cancer at a rate of 1:1900. They say that’s a lot of wasted money. I looked at the 2000 US Census. In the age category of women, 40-49, there were 21 million women. At their rate of 1:1900, that means 11,000+ women will have breast cancer in their 40’s. That’s 11,000 moms, wives, daughters, cousins, aunts, & friends. Who are they to say that those 11,000 women aren’t important enough to live?
And that’s just in the US. Since the world follows our lead a lot, if you take that same calculation to the 6 billion world population, that would be hundreds of thousands of women. THAT’S UNACCEPTABLE! We’re a better society than that. The women in our lives are too important to be thrown to the side due to statistics!
I’ve become very passionate about this subject due to recent circumstances. My cousin Heidi is about to lose her life to breast cancer. They haven’t given her much time left. She is in her 40’s. She is married with a family. If they had only found hers sooner…
I think the topic of cancer screening in general needs to be brought up. We need advances in technology (detection methods) and advances in society (subsidies for low cost or free checkups, as well as preventative care). The problem is that there are a lot of Americans with terminal cancer that started out as something easily treatable, like a precancerous mole. A lot of these people might have thought to themselves that they would like to get it checked out, but simply didn’t have the time or money to do so, and now they’re laying in hospice saying goodbye to their loved ones.
I wish cost didn’t have to figure into the equation. The only things that should figure in are health risk vs health reward. The risk being damage from excessive X-rays, the reward being peace of mind and possibly decades of life if cancer is detected early.
Unfortunately, there are many simple ways that we can extend and enhance our lives through medicine that aren’t pursued because of cost. There are many Americans that we work or go to school with that have severe vitamin deficiencies and don’t know it because they don’t get regular checkups, and even if they do, they don’t test for much. There are many people with extremely high blood pressure or even diabetes that just can’t afford to get it checked on, much less take care of it.
The best solution, obviously, will be to reconstruct the medical industry from the ground up. We can’t expect to have the most expensive medical care in the world but expect to get it for cheap or free. We can’t saddle doctors with +$100k of school debt and work them to the bone, then expect them to work for reasonable rates. I suspect cancer deaths will drop sharply if this ever happens, but until then, there will still be plenty of people dying from metastatic melanoma or breast cancer because they couldn’t afford to make it to the doctor.