It depends upon who you’re asking and what you consider a benefit.
A new study is out showing that increased use of mammography has no bearing on mortality from the disease.
The study, reported by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), examined data from 16 million women from 547 U.S. counties who were at least 40 years old in 2000. The data on the approximately 53,000 of those women who were diagnosed with breast cancer showed that while there is a significant association between the extent of the screening and the incidence of small breast cancer tumors detected, the increased detection had no bearing on death from the disease.
This is not the first study of its kind. One study published in the British Medical Journal and conducted over a period of 25 years found little difference in the mortality rates of women who were diagnosed with breast cancer following routine mammograms and those who were diagnosed through an annual physical breast exam without mammography. It followed 3,250 cancer-stricken women who received mammography and 3,133 cancer-stricken women who did not.
Of those, 500 in the mammography group and 505 in the control group died from the disease. But after 15 years of follow-up, the mammography group had 106 extra cancer diagnoses which were attributed to over-diagnosis.
The study’s authors concluded:
Annual mammography in women aged 40-59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care when adjuvant therapy for breast cancer is freely available. Overall, 22 percent of screen detected invasive breast cancers were over-diagnosed, representing one over-diagnosed breast cancer for every 424 women who received mammography screening in the trial.
That rate of over-diagnosis almost mirrored the results of a Norwegian trial conducted in 2012 that found a 25 percent over-diagnosis rate when using mammography.
In addition to false positives, the National Cancer Institute found that mammograms miss about 20 percent of breast cancers that are present at the time of the screening.
In “A Cancer Answer: Holistic Breast Cancer Management,” Catherine J. Frompovich cited a Dec. 2, 2009 Medscape article on research presented at the 95th Scientific Assembly of the Radiological Society of North America. The researchers determined that low doses of radiation associated with annual screening could be placing high-risk women in even more jeopardy of developing breast cancer, particularly if they start screening at a young age or have frequent exposure.
Another study cited by Frompovich, whose book details her battle to eliminate her own breast cancer using only alternative treatments of supplements and diet and lifestyle changes, cited another article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine on Oct. 24, 2011. The article concluded: “Most women with screen-detected breast cancer have not had their life saved by screening. They are instead either diagnosed early (often with no effect on their mortality) or over-diagnosed.”
Now back to the ACSH study. Researcher Charles Harding also determined over-diagnosis is a problem with increased mammography. He wrote:
Annual mammography in women aged 40-59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care when adjuvant therapy for breast cancer is freely available. Overall, 22 percent of screen detected invasive breast cancers were over-diagnosed, representing one over-diagnosed breast cancer for every 424 women who received mammography screening in the trial.
So who benefits from mammography? Clearly, Big Pharma and Big Medicine do — with the ongoing promotion and creation of new and better mammography machines to sell to hospitals and doctor’s offices and extra procedures and the mixing of new chemical cocktails and radiation cancer treatments.
But it’s not clear women who are subjected to the torture benefit, and it’s likely they get more torture than they bargained for.
Frompovich recommends substituting thermography for mammography. Your doctor may resist, given that the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t recommend it. Frompovich suggests getting a thermographic baseline reading and also having cancer/tumor blood tests drawn as part of an annual physical.
Frompovich’s book is available from Amazon.
