Mammograms improve breast cancer prognosis
Published: August 19, 2005
Detection of breast cancer via a mammogram, even if the cancer has spread to a lymph node, is associated with a better prognosis than when the cancer is discovered by other methods.
A study, published in the latest issue of Journal of the National Cancer Institute, examined the role detection procedures played independent of age, tumor size, and lymph node progression in a subject pool of 150,000 women. They found that detection from a mammogram is advantageous even if the cancer has already spread to the lymph nodes.
Researchers state that this is true because of the type of slow-progressing cancer that mammograms are able to detect. This notion, called lead time, occurs when a cancer is detected far ahead of when it would be noticed symptomatically (i.e. feeling a lump in the breast). The high amount of lead time in mammograms allows the patient treatment procedures that are more effective and less invasive than if the cancer was noticed symptomatically.
Donald Berry, contributor to the study, believes that a steady schedule of mammograms through a woman’s life will definitively help deter breast cancer progression risk.
“We know that screening picks up many tumors before they can be detected in other ways and women may benefit from early treatment, but the advantage we found is much larger than what would be expected from the so-called stage shift that is associated with screening mammography.”
Mammography is not without faults as false positives do occur, that is, the technology allows detection of very small tumors, many of which will never spread and which would have never be diagnosed through other means.
“Without screening, some of the women would not have been diagnosed with breast cancer at all, and in that group, some of them could have avoided surgery and treatment without detriment,” Berry said. “The rub is that we don’t know which ones they are.”
Most women chose to err on the side of caution. Doctors advise women who notice a lump between mammogram screenings to immediately notify their doctor, as the cancer may be progressing rapidly.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: