Avoid Didital Mammography

Mammography is the process of using low-energy X-rays (usually around 30 k Vp) to examine the human breast and is used as a diagnostic and a screening tool. The goal of mammography is the early detection of breast cancer, typically through detection of characteristic masses and/or micro calcifications.

 As with any screening test, screening mammograms have both benefits and limitations. For example, some cancers cannot be detected by a screening mammogram but may be found by a clinical breast exam.

Checking one's own breasts for lumps or other unusual changes is called a breast self-exam, or BSE. This type of exam cannot replace regular screening mammograms or clinical breast exams. In clinical trials, BSE alone was not found to help reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer.

A new study published in The Lancet shows that for every life saved by mammography screening, three women will be over diagnosed and treated for a cancer that might never have given them trouble in their lifetimes.

Mammography has a false-negative (missed cancer) rate of at least 10 percent. This is partly due to dense tissues obscuring the cancer and the fact that the appearance of cancer on mammograms has a large overlap with the appearance of normal tissues. A meta-analysis review of programs in countries with organized screening found 52% over-diagnosis

This cost to women well-being is worth considering, the study panel said, because:

99 percent of patients diagnosed with a screen-detected breast cancer will undergo surgery
About 70 percent will receive radiotherapy
70 percent will receive adjuvant endocrine therapy, and
25 percent will undergo toxic chemotherapy
We recommend using Thermograph, ultrasound or Biofeedback instead of mammography.

Even though mammograms can detect malignant tumors that cannot be felt, treating a small tumor does not always mean that the woman will not die from the cancer. A fast-growing or aggressive cancer may have already spread to other parts of the body before it is detected. Women with such tumors live a longer period of time knowing that they likely have a fatal disease.  

Dr. George Grant, Ph.D., I.M.D.

www.academyofwellness.com