We’ve written to you many times in the past about mammograms. Despite the fact that this breast cancer screening procedure is painful and risky the mainstream still chooses to cling to it like it’s a long lost child.

In recent years, mounting evidence has challenged the validity and safety of mammograms in breast cancer prevention… Now, a recent study by Southampton University researchers has found that too many screening programmes, including mammograms, lead to misdiagnosed results and the overtreatment of harmless breast lumps.

Weighing up the pros and cons

When it comes to cancer, an early diagnosis is absolutely imperative and screening programmes are supposedly designed to save lives through early diagnosis of cancer. The question now is, has the mainstream got it wrong?

Back in 2001, a controversial report, published in the medical journal The Lancet, concluded that breast cancer screening, offered to all women in the UK over the age of 50, does not reduce deaths. Even back then some experts felt that screening may do more harm than good.

Now, 10 years later, the latest study, published in the British Medical Journal, echoes exactly the same sentiment. The Southampton researchers say that the negative outcomes of screening programmes cancel out up to half of the benefits that others get from living longer lives.

In short, this means that while a positive result after screening may give an extra year of life to one breast cancer victim, it could result in six months’ worth of suffering due to unnecessary treatment for another patient.

Previous research has shown that for every 2,000 screenings, 200 women will have a “false positive” result and 10 of those women will have unnecessary surgery, but only one life will be saved.

The lead researcher of the Southampton study, Prof James Raftery, said: “To save one life, that woman will have surgery, but 10 more will have surgery that do not need it. The reason is they have lumps that are diagnosed as cancer but… most of those lumps would not have gone on to become cancer or to have killed a person.”

Needless surgery cuts the benefits

In 1986, the Forrest Report led to the introduction of breast cancer screening in the UK. According to the Forrest Report, the effectiveness of these screening programmes would be measured in “quality of life years” (QALYs) — the extra years of life patients gain as a result of screening.

Back then, it was estimated that screening programmes would gain patients 3,301 QALYs over a 20-year-period. However, this estimate did not take into account the potential harm of false positive results. As a result, the damaging impact of false positive diagnoses and needless surgery cut the expected QALYs of 3,301, by more than half to 1,536 QALYs, according to the results of the latest study.

The researchers added that for the first eight years, women were more likely to be harmed than to enjoy any benefit. Only 20 years after screening do the net benefits for patients really begin to accumulate.

Prof Raftery said: “”There are lots of women who have had surgery who believe their lives were saved when in fact only around one in 10 has had their life saved.”

Lay out the options

Of course, this does not mean that women should stop being screened for breast cancer altogether. However, patients should be warned about the possible negative effects of screening and have a better understanding of the risks of unnecessary treatment before they are screened. Yet this is clearly not happening…

A damning report from the Cochrane Collaboration, published in 2010, said that women are being seriously misled by health officials who dramatically downplay the risks of mammography X-rays while overstating the benefits. The report also questioned the prevailing view that mammograms save lives and says that this is based on shoddy and biased science.

Women should also be given the option to choose the method of screening they prefer. As I mentioned earlier, mammograms are extremely painful and invasive procedures. The real kicker is that a breast cancer tumour is only detected by a mammogram after it’s grown for several years, and achieved more than 25 doublings of the malignant cell colony. So, by the time you get a warning from your mammogram the tumour may already be at a growth-stage where it is too difficult and too late to treat. Worse still, the compression required for mammograms can actually break down cancer tissue and rupture small blood vessels that support the cancer, causing it to spread.

Luckily, there are safer and less painful screening options, like thermography or thermal imaging. Mammograms look at anatomical changes in the breast, as they detect masses or lumps in the breast tissue. Thermograms, on the other hand, look at vascular changes in the breast, as they detect blood flow patterns, inflammation and asymmetries, which allows them to detect irregular patterns in the breast before a noticeable lump is formed.

In the case of inflammatory cancer, there are no detectable lumps, which makes self-examination and mammograms pointless. However, thermography will certainly help in these cases with an early detection.

Thermal imaging does not cause pain, is non-invasive and quick – your multi-image examinations usually take less than 15 minutes. Plus, it makes no contact with your body – no compression (unlike mammograms) and it emits absolutely NO radiation.

It all adds up: No radiation, no squashing and bruising, early detection, quicker diagnoses and prevention and a healthier cancer-free you!

Sources:

‘Breast cancer screening could cause more harm than good’ published online 09.12.11, telegraph.co.uk

The California State Legislature passed a bill last Friday requiring doctors to inform women if they have dense breasts after a mammogram, making California the second state this summer and the third state so far to have passed a so-called breast density law.

The bill, SB 791, passed the state Senate 35-1, and is now going before Gov. Jerry Brown to get signed.

When he signs it, starting next year, Calif. radiologists will have to send women with dense breasts, as determined by an American College of Radiology-developed system, this text:

Because your mammogram demonstrates that you have dense breast tissue, which could hide small abnormalities, you might benefit from supplementary screening tests, depending on your individual risk factors. A report of your mammography results, which contains information about your breast density, has been sent to your physician’s office and you should contact your physician if you have any questions or concerns about this notice.

Texas Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry signed into law a similar bill, Texas Act HB 2102, or Henda’s Law, in June. And breast density legislation was also passed in Connecticut in 2009.

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Florida all have similar legislation pending.

The American College of Radiology Imaging Network says that around 40 percent of women getting screening mammograms have dense breasts, with younger women typically having denser breasts.

Dense breasts are less fatty, with more connective tissue. The connective tissue appears white on a mammogram, just like the cancer, making it harder to diagnose, according to Are You Dense, an advocacy group.

A January 2011 study by the Mayo Clinic found three-quarters of cancers in women with dense breasts are missed by mammograms.

“When it comes to your health, ignorance is not bliss. What you don’t know can hurt you,” State Sen. Joe Simitian, a Democrat from Palo Alto who authored the bill, said in a statement.

The idea for the bill came from by Amy Colton, a registered nurse who had breast cancer not discovered by a mammogram, and who learned she had dense breasts only after her cancer was diagnosed, according to Are You Dense. She suggested the bill in Simitian’s “There Oughta Be a Law” contest.

However, the bill met some opposition from the California Medical Association. Writing about an earlier incarnation of the bill, SB 173, the CMA warned that it could bring legal and practical problems for Calif. doctors.

“Because the scope of who must receive the notice is so broad, women will be ‘scared’ into thinking they need these expensive additional screenings when it isn’t at all warranted, leading to increased costs and pressures on a physician’s practice,” the group wrote in a notice on its website. “Moreover, because the grading of the condition that may/may not lead to their receipt of the prescribed notice is subjective in nature, the absence of the notice could lead to lawsuits against doctors if a patient is later diagnosed with breast cancer.”

But the bill was backed by several other groups, including the California Nurses Association, the Breast Cancer Fund, the California Association of Health Underwriters and California NOW.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — It took seven years of annual mammograms and a cancer diagnosis for Amy Colton to learn something her doctors had realized from the beginning: Her breast tissue is so dense that it could have masked tumors on earlier exams.

“I requested a copy of the report sent from my radiologist to my primary care physician, and every single one said, ‘Patient has extremely dense breast tissue,’” the registered labor and delivery nurse said. “I was really outraged that I didn’t know this.”

About 40 percent of women over 40 have breast tissue dense enough to mask or mimic cancers on mammograms, but many of them don’t know it. Mammogram providers in California will be required to notify those patients, and suggest that they discuss additional screenings with their doctors based on their individual risk factors, if Gov. Jerry Brown signs a bill that the Legislature passed this month. Similar laws have passed in Texas and Connecticut in the past two years but no data is available yet from either state on the effect of the legislation.

“The notice in the bill is a two-sentence notice that gets added to a letter,” said the bill’s author, Democratic state Sen. Joe Simitian of Palo Alto. “I believe these two sentences can save thousands of lives.”

Brown has not given his opinion about the bill, but many doctors oppose it. Researchers studying breast density, a relatively young field, said such requirements may end up causing undo anxiety in millions of women and lead to unnecessary and expensive ultrasound or MRI screenings.

The California Medical Association, which represents 35,000 doctors, recommended a public education campaign instead of individual notifications, and said there isn’t enough evidence to support the idea the extra money spent on additional screenings will save more lives.

Those tests could cost the state more than $1 billion, and many women wouldn’t be able to afford them, said Dr. Karen Lindfors, a professor of radiology and chief of breast imaging at the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. She testified against the bill before a legislative committee.

“I just don’t think that at this point we have the ability to meet the kind of demand either financially or in terms of manpower that this is going to create, and we also don’t have proof that it’s going to save lives,” she said.

The women who would receive the notifications have more tissue than fat in their breasts. As women age, their breasts become more fatty. Fat appears black on a mammogram, making it easier to spot cancer, which shows up as white.

Doctors agree that high breast density is an increased risk factor for cancer, but researchers say the issue needs more study to determine whether the risk is great enough to justify a higher level of screenings for women who have it.

Pre-menopausal women are more likely to have dense tissue, regardless of whether they are at high risk for breast cancer, said Celine Vachon, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. She said women who get the notifications required by the California bill could be frightened into seeking additional screenings, such as MRIs or ultrasounds, which can pick up false positives and cost thousands of dollars.

“If women want their breast density information, that’s their right,” Vachon said. “However, breast density is not yet a risk factor that’s used clinically, so what women will do with this information is not clear. We need improved density measurements as well as models that do a better job of predicting women’s risk. Everyone wants density to be this silver bullet, but to date, it’s not.”

Colton, who got the California legislation rolling by contacting Simitian’s office, said women ought to be told whether their breast density could make cancer difficult to detect.

She said she practiced self-exams monthly, had no family history of breast cancer and thought she was among the lucky cohort of women at a low risk for breast cancer. But five surgeries, six weeks of daily radiation and 15 rounds of chemotherapy later, she is angered that she went years without being told about her dense breast tissue.

“I don’t want anyone to think this is a rare story. There are countless women like me, and many with worse diagnoses,” she said.

Dr. Judy Dean, a diagnostic radiologist in Santa Barbara who specializes in breast imaging, supports the effort. She said 20 of her patients have found cancers through ultrasounds after she informed them that their dense tissue might be hiding tumors in a mammogram.

“Negative doesn’t mean negative; you could still be positive,” she said.

All radiologists agree that a mammogram — an X-ray image of the breast — is the best way for a woman to discover whether she has dense tissue, but few agree on how to proceed with that information.

Researchers have been experimenting with new breast imaging techniques that might provide the same answers as an MRI or ultrasound for women with a high risk for cancer, but with less expense. 3-D X-ray images known as “stereo mammograms” and molecular breast imaging are two techniques that are better than traditional mammograms at spotting cancers and cost much less than MRIs.

Some say a notice about the hidden risks of dense tissue should be sent to all women receiving the results of their mammogram, not just those with dense tissue. That way, everyone can be armed with the available information, said California state Assemblywoman Linda Halderman, a former breast cancer surgeon.

She said the bill would end up giving women with low breast tissue density false assurances they are not at risk for cancer.

“We’re offering something to women that doesn’t help improve their care or shed any light on the best way to assess their risk for breast cancer,” said Halderman, a Republican from Fresno. “Unfortunately, breast density is just one of those things we don’t know about yet.”

J OANN  G. E LMORE , M.D., M.P.H., M ARY  B. B ARTON , M.D., M.P.P., V ICTORIA  M. M OCERI , P H .C., S ARAH  P OLK , B.A., P HILIP  J. A RENA , M.D.,  AND  S UZANNE  W. F LETCHER , M.D.

A BSTRACT Background The cumulative risk of a false positiveresult of a breast-cancer screening test is unknown. Methods We performed a 10-year retrospective co-hort study of breast-cancer screening and diagnosticevaluations among 2400 women who were 40 to 69years old at study entry. Mammograms or clinicalbreast examinations that were interpreted as indeter-minate, aroused a suspicion of cancer, or promptedrecommendations for additional workup in women inwhom breast cancer was not diagnosed within thenext year were considered to be false positive tests. Results A total of 9762 screening mammogramsand 10,905 screening clinical breast examinationswere performed, for a median of 4 mammograms and5 clinical breast examinations per woman over the 10-year period. Of the women who were screened, 23.8percent had at least one false positive mammogram,13.4 percent had at least one false positive breast ex-amination, and 31.7 percent had at least one falsepositive result for either test. The estimated cumula-tive risk of a false positive result was 49.1 percent (95percent confidence interval, 40.3 to 64.1 percent) after10 mammograms and 22.3 percent (95 percent confi-dence interval, 19.2 to 27.5 percent) after 10 clinicalbreast examinations. The false positive tests led to870 outpatient appointments, 539 diagnostic mam-mograms, 186 ultrasound examinations, 188 biopsies,and 1 hospitalization. We estimate that among wom-en who do not have breast cancer, 18.6 percent (95percent confidence interval, 9.8 to 41.2 percent) willundergo a biopsy after 10 mammograms, and 6.2 per-cent (95 percent confidence interval, 3.7 to 11.2 per-cent) after 10 clinical breast examinations. For every$100 spent for screening, an additional $33 was spentto evaluate the false positive results.

To read the rest of the study, click here to download the PDF.

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CNN) — The use of mammograms has dipped since a medical task force made controversial recommendations that women in their 40s may not need to get breast cancer screenings every year, according to one of three small studies to be presented Monday.

The studies related to this topic will be presented at the American Roentgen Ray Society annual meeting. They do not appear in peer-reviewed journals.

The studies suggest that fewer physicians are recommending annual mammograms for women in their 40s, fewer patients in that age group are getting screened and that tumors found through routine mammography are more likely to be detected in early stages of cancer.

The studies examined the impact of the controversial guidelines issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federal advisory board.

Who decides about mammograms? Inside the task force

In November 2009, the group stated that yearly mammograms should not be automatic at age 40 and that physicians should discuss their risks and benefits with their patients. It recommended routine mammography screenings every two years for women ages 50 to 74.

2010: New mammogram research

2010: Mammograms in 30s: No benefit? “The benefit in 40- to 49-year-old women is pretty small,” said Dr. Virginia Moyer, chair of the task force, about annual mammograms. “There is a real, but rather modest benefit. There are also risks, and they are greater in younger women than older women.”

Mammograms are less effective in detecting growths in younger women, whose breasts may be denser. The screening gets better with older women because breast tissues change over time.

As a result, some women experience false positives, anxiety and unnecessary biopsies because of mammograms, according to data. Roughly 15% of women in their 40s detect breast cancer through mammography.

Should I get a mammogram?

“The benefit is modest enough it needs to be an individual decision,” Moyer said about mammograms for women in their 40s.

This contradicted advice from cancer groups such as the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which told women 40 and older to get screened every year. It sparked immediate outcry from such groups and cancer survivors, who say routine mammograms for women younger than 50 can save lives.

Once-dropping U.S. breast cancer rates now stable

Suspicious growths caught in regular-screening mammograms are more likely to be in early stages and therefore more treatable, said Dr. Donna Plecha, division chief of mammography at University Hospitals at Case Medical Center in Ohio.

She reviewed records of 524 biopsies (samples of suspicious growths in breasts) from women in their 40s during 2008 to 2009 at her hospital.

Of the 359 biopsies from screening mammography patients, 15% had cancer. These cancers were more treatable because they were caught in earlier stages, Plecha said.

Although 85% of those biopsies turned out to be noncancerous, some “may show us the patient is at higher risk of breast cancer,” she said.

“I haven’t met many patients who don’t appreciate us being thorough, to trying to find the cancers at an early stage,” Plecha said. “I would still recommend screening mammograms starting at age of 40,” because cancers caught earlier would be more curable.

Breast cancer ID’d more accurately by docs who see more scans

Plecha’s findings were not surprising to Moyer. It’s obvious that annual screenings would catch cancers before they progress, she said.

The study presumes that catching earlier stages for women between the ages of 40-49 would translate into fewer breast cancer deaths.

“The data that we have suggests that 1 in a thousand will benefit from mammograms in the 40-49 age,” she said. “There are whole lots of assumptions that are not supported by the data they presented.”

The task force did not say don’t get mammograms, Moyer said.

“It might make women not want to get the test,” she said. “This is a decision that should belong to the woman with appropriate info on hand.”

In another study, Dr. Lara Hardesty, section chief of breast imaging at the University of Colorado Hospital, examined survey results from fewer than 50 internists, gynecologists, family practitioners and nurse midwives.

She found that fewer clinicians were recommending annual mammograms after the task force’s guidelines were issued.

Before the guidelines, 56% recommended yearly mammograms for women in the 40- to 49-year-old range. After the guidelines, that rate decreased to 20%, and 56% of the clinicians reported they were discussing the risks and benefits of screening with patients. That decrease, Hardesty said, “is a statistically significant difference,” but it also showed more doctors were discussing mammograms with patients.

Hardesty also found that there were 205 fewer mammograms among women in their 40s after the guidelines were issued. Among patients 50 and older, mammograms increased slightly from 4,479 patients to 4,498.

It was unclear why mammograms in the 40s decreased while older women’s mammograms increased slightly.

Hardesty offered this hypothesis: Older women are used to having annual mammograms because they’ve done it for years. Meanwhile, younger women may feel as though they don’t have to get this screening.

Although the task force concluded that the net benefit of mammography in the 40s is small, Hardesty said: “If you’re the one person we find your cancer, it’s the world to you.”

Here’s a quote from the article:

“Several years ago, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF) issued an updated set of recommendations about mammogram screenings, suggesting which and how often women should get them. Since the last time the group issued its recommendations in 2002, new study data emerged that has led to a few changes. Its new guidelines, suggesting that women over 40 only need a mammogram every two years, has led to a firestorm of criticism from professional and advocacy groups as well as politicians.”

To read this complete article click here.

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Women Have A Safe Alternative to Mammograms to Maintain Annual Screenings

For immediate release from the American College of Clinical Thermology.

 Women of all ages received good news with the recent revision of the government recommendations for screening mammography.  The US Department of Health and Human Services released their findings and recommendations that screening mammography should now be started at age 50 and performed bi-annually. Up until now, screening was recommended on an annual basis at age 40; this new recommendation has created renewed controversy as doctors have concerns about reducing the number of mammograms that would be clinically justified and indicated..  It takes years for most cancers to develop to the stage that they can be detected with mammogram or ultrasound (dense enough for location and biopsy) so Breast Thermography or Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging (DITI) is ideally placed as an alternative screening tool to identify changes over time in the ‘early’ development stages, before there is more advanced pathology that can be detected with other tests. If changes for the better are to be made, then the recent recommendations of the Preventative Services Task Force will establish the foundation of a more affective screening program which should integrate other types of safe testing.  Of the various testing options Breast Thermography or Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging (DITI) offers the most promise for screening the younger age group women.  

To understand the arguments and issues involved with the new recommendations, we need to understand the difference between ‘screening mammography’ and ‘diagnostic mammography’:

‘Screening’ mammography has been performed annually on healthy women from the ages of 40 to 70 and is aimed at identifying suspicious findings, which justify further investigation. ‘Diagnostic’ mammography is performed on patients who have one or more risk factors, clinical symptoms, or most commonly a palpable lump. There is little argument about mammography’s role as the ‘gold standard’ for

evaluating suspicious symptoms but the question was, can we still justify subjecting women without symptoms to ‘screening’ mammography ?  The answer was NO.

The federal department of health and human services  task force says that “the modest benefit of screening mammograms must be weighed against the harms… which are nearly cut in half when mammograms are performed every other year  but the benefits remain the same”. It needs to be pointed out that the recommendations of the task force are not intended for women at increased risk for breast cancer who should continue to be referred for diagnostic mammography by their doctors when appropriate, and on a case by case basis. It is interesting to note that The United States is currently the only country that routinely screens women below age 50 and extends its screening practice by taking two or more mammograms per breast annually in women over age 50. This contrasts with the more restrained European practice of a single view every two to three years. The evidence concludes that while there is a justifiable role for mammography to play in a breast cancer screening program that role is very different from the one currently in place.

For over 20 years Breast Thermography is being used increasingly  by women throughout the US, and it has been rapidly gaining acceptance by doctors as an additional tool in the early diagnosis of breast disease. FDA registered since 1984, Thermography is an adjunctive diagnosic test being offered by hundreds of clinics in all states. A list of certified thermography clinics can be found at the The American College of Clinical Thermology website at :   http://www.thermologyonline.org/Breast/breast_thermography_clinics.htm. Thermography is 100% safe, has no radiation, does not touch the breast, and only takes a couple of minutes. A positive or suspicious thermal study will indicate medical necessity for a mammogram, ultrasound or other tests. The thermal findings will increase the sensitivity and specificity of most other tests by targeting an area of the breast showing dysfunction and providing decision making information in women that would not have otherwise been tested.

Early detection is aimed at prevention and if early changes are detected then we have an opportunity to intervene and change the outcome. The earlier an abnormality is detected the better the treatment options will be, resulting in a better outcome. There are no contraindications for DITI, it is totally non-invasive, no radiation of any type, and no contact with the body so it can ‘do no harm’. DITI is positioned as the ideal screening test for women of all ages but particularly for the 30 to 50 age group. The best possible plan is to use every appropriate test adjunctively to get the highest detection rates without generating additional or unnecessary invasive testing. It would be unfortunate for a patient to forgo a necessary mammogram that was justified, and any decision should be made between the patient and her doctors based on individual history, symptoms and test results.

The principle of informed consent in medicine is ignored if women are not informed of the evidence relating to any risks of a test and if women more readily consent to annual mammograms because they have been given ‘misinformation’ this is as bad as obtaining consent by deliberately blocking valid information. Women are entitled to know the full range of responsible opinion about the benefits, the risks, and the many uncertainties of mammography.

The government task force are to be applauded for presenting the evidence for women and their doctors to be able to make better informed decisions about breast screening.

As reported, the scientific and medical evidence indicates that:

No ‘screening’ mammography is justified for women under the age of 50.

A baseline screening mammogram may be justified at age 50 and bi-annually thereafter.

Accountability and responsibility should be considered in regard to all radiation exposure and the accumulative biological effects.

Reducing ionizing radiation exposure from all other sources whenever possible should be practiced.

Up-to-Date and accurate information must be given to patients for informed consent.

Other non invasive tests should be promoted as part of a breast screening program.

Thermography, Ultrasound and MRI should be further explored, adapted and integrated.

The Record

Alternative to mammograms

In view of the recent U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations concerning new guidelines for having mammograms, some vital information for women needs to be presented. The new guidelines are for the general population, not those at high risk of breast cancer because of family history or gene mutations.

It has always been known that mammograms carry a significant risk of causing and spreading breast cancer, although this has largely been ignored by mainstream medicine. They can cause breast cancer through repeated irradiation of the breasts and spread cancer by the fracturing of the fibrous capsule surrounding the tumor through compression of the breasts.

A 1999 meta-analysis, “Is Screening for Breast Cancer with Mammography Justifiable?,” was published in The Lancet, the United Kingdom’s premier medical journal, in 2000. It said, “Screening for breast cancer with mammography is unjustified.” This study showed that “for every 1,000 females having mammograms over a 12-year period, the life of one was saved, while the total number of deaths increased by six.” The United States continued to screen with mammography until the new recommendations appeared in the Nov. 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Many women are asking themselves, “What should I do now?” The answer is simple: thermography, or digital infrared thermal imaging. This is a true “screening” test that is absolutely 100 percent safe, since it does not require contact with the breasts or use ionizing radiation. It has been approved by the FDA for breast cancer screening since 1982.

Thermography employs an infrared camera that measures the physiology of the breast, not the structures within the breast, as does mammography. The physiology is function rather than structure, more specifically inflammation. Inflammation at any tissue depth will be recorded by the sympathetic fibers in the neurological supply of nerves to that area. This neural information will then be processed through the central nervous system, which will then cause a sympathetic (automatic) response in the area of the skin corresponding to the affected site. Thermographically, the area of hyperthermia seen at the surface of the skin is due to a decrease of sympathetic motor tone (reduced sympathetic function) allowing increased blood flow through the postganglionic gates serving that area. And, all this happens before the presence of a tumor.

In addition, thermography can pick up breast disease eight to 10 years earlier than mammography can pick up a tumor. This happens long before tumor formation, whereas a tumor of a rather large size must be present for mammography to be effective. The bottom line is thermography is preventive, and mammography is no more than “early detection” of an already present tumor.

If any further studies are required for diagnosis, breast ultrasound and breast MRI are the tests of choice, since they are completely safe and do not employ radiation.

Women 21 or older should screen for cancer by doing breast self-examination, clinical breast examination annually and at each doctor’s visit, and thermography.

Alan L. Woods. 

Wyckoff, Nov. 17

The writer, a physician, is director of natural health education for the Institute of Natural Health and Wellness in Wyckoff.

Readers Comments:

Welcome attack on ‘holy grail’

Speaking from the vantage point of a senior citizen, I am thrilled that the U.S. Preventive Task Services Force has issued new guidelines for mammogram screenings.

In the past, whenever I tried to have a conversation with my doctors about the risks of mammography, my questions were answered with anger and belligerence as if I were violating a sacred holy grail.

Now, women can feel free to ask such questions as: Will repeated radiation exposures to the breast pose a cancer risk for premenapausal women under 50?

What about so-called indolent cancers that will never spread and tiny cancers that might go away by themselves? Is it possible that I could be subjected to unnecessary surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and really be healthy?