Seeking Health

Since turning 45 I, like all women in NZ over that age, have been invited to participate in the national breast screening program. This program is solely comprised of regular mammograms. I have opted out of this program due to the research I have done into the effectiveness of mammograms and the risks involved.

This is fairly shocking to most women who have been told that mammography can and does save lives. However, we need to remember that these are marketing messages that are informing us and not messages that report scientific findings. Here are my issues with mammograms:

1. Mammography is highly unreliable. It tends to miss aggressive tumours that grow between screenings, while detecting small, benign tumours, such as carcinoma in situ, that are usually not cancers at all and are often referred to as “pseudo-cancers”. In spite of the fact that most of these pseudo-cancers will not develop into a cancer that will require treatment, women diagnosed with them are advised to have lumpectomies, to receive radiation treatments, and to take drugs like tamoxifen. This is overtreatment for a condition that is highly unlikely to be life-threatening.

2. Particularly troubling is how these women are classified as “cancer survivors”. Almost all of them would be alive five years after diagnosis (the benchmark for survival) even with no treatment. This skews the survival statistics numbers, making it look like treatments for breast cancer are much more effective than they really are. While mammography detects pseudo-cancers resulting in overtreatment, it does not reduce the risk from dying from the real cases of breast cancer.

3. A research letter published in 2001 in Lancet reported the findings of the Cochrane Review that looked at the efficacy of mammograms for reducing breast cancer deaths. It is important to note that the Cochrane Collaboration is the most independent medical research organisation in the world, and therefore its conclusions about various issues related to medicine should be taken seriously. The article stated, “In 2000, we reported that there is no reliable evidence that screening for breast cancer reduces mortality. As we discuss here, a Cochrane Review has now confirmed and strengthened our findings.”

4. Cochrane has further concluded that screening led to an increase in radical treatments due to overdiagnosis or 25 to 35%; that 49% of screened women would experience at least one false positive; and that the absolute reduction in risk of death was 0.1%.

5. The Cochrane researchers also concluded that studies showing that mammograms reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer do not take into consideration the deaths related to breast cancer treatments, and that more women are harmed from overtreatment than are saved with mammography. The group stated, “There is no reliable evidence from large randomised trials to support screening mammography at any age.”

6. Another study published online by the British Medical Journal was conducted in Denmark, a great country for studying mammography outcomes. For the past 17 years, only about 20% of women in Denmark have been screened, leaving a large control group from which data can be gathered. Two geographic areas were included in the study: Copenhagen, where screening was introduced in 1991; and Funen, where screening was introduced in 1997. Between 1997 and 2005, deaths from breast cancer dropped by 5 % for women between the ages of 35 and 55 in both these areas. For women aged between 55 and 74, the decline was 1% in mortality rate. In the non-screened population in Denmark, the death rate from breast cancer declined by 6% for women between the ages of 35 and 55 and 2% for women between 55 and 74. The researchers also observed that diagnosis of carcinoma in situ (pseudo-cancer) doubled in the population of women who were screened and remained the same in the nonscreened population.

7. Studies even show that mammography is contraindicated for women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation, which predisposes them to a higher risk of developing breast cancer. In one study, researchers concluded that mammography screening beginning at age 25 to 29 years of age results in a higher risk of breast cancer due to increased lifetime radiation exposure, and that mammography may have a net harmful effect for these patients.

Add to that the research showing that eating a wholefood, plant based diet significantly reduces your chances of developing cancer in the first place and I feel pretty confident in my decision.