Why so many cancer victims?
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| Tue, 07-07-2009 - 1:20pm |
I'm sure there are those of you who read several weeks ago about the pro golfer, Phil Mickelson, and the sad fact that his beloved wife Amy had breast cancer. She recently had a very promising surgery procedure that hopefully will be a success, and she can live a long, healthy life.
It was just announced yesterday that Phil's mom has also been diagnosed with breast cancer, and is in the same hospital that Amy was in during her ordeal.
Why are there so many cases of breast cancer in women? Is this something that has been going on for decades but wasn't publicized as it is now, or due to more recent causes?
I will pray for the Mickelson family, and hope his mother has a speedy recovery. I know so many women, both young and old, who have had to undergo surgery and treatments for this most dreaded disease.
mwm

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I must have just been lucky so far.
Sounds like you have faith in your doctor(s) and their methods. Am glad for you but still think that there are flaws in logic with the cancer "early detection" model. Here's why. A study which would prove the benefits would have to track a control group known to have cancer without actually treating it; and compare it to a similarly afflicted group which received conventional cancer "therapies". It would have to be a longitudinal study which tracked members of both groups until the time of death. I know of no such study which has rigorous methodology and controls to definitively reach the conclusion about early detections benefits. Are there any placebos which mimic the nausea, hair loss, burns, etc. of either chemo or radiation "therapy"?
I can see plenty of reasons why the "early detection" notion would benefit the medical community far more than the individual. Treat early, treat often (to paraphrase the old political cliche)!
Moreover, the word "cancer" is used so broadly that I daresay most of us, particularly as we age, would find something in our bodies which came under the rubric if we looked hard enough.
"Cancer is not just one disease, but a large group of almost one hundred diseases. Its two main characteristics are uncontrolled growth of the cells in the human body and the ability of these cells to migrate from the original site and spread to distant sites." answers.com
I might be tolerant of the medical community's insistence on early detection IF their protocols were less destructive and painful. But those methods are frequently devastating, sometimes as much as or more than the ill they're meant to treat. I know too many people who "kept the faith" with conventional medicine; and are sick, dying or dead. The history of medical practices proved ineffective, dangerous or outright stupid is one which makes me believe that doctors do NOT currently know all the answers or even that their therapies are effective.
Have also done some digging on cervical cancer. What I've seen places a great deal of emphasis on the role of HPV (which is an STD and would not be a factor in lifetime monogamous couples). Moreover, there is some debate about over-screening using the pap test: http://www.nwhn.org/newsletter/options/print.cfm?info_id=105
The doctor to whom I was going, learned that my husband and I were living in different states (whole 'nother story) and apparently decided he might be cheating on me, putting me at risk for HPV. She was the same doctor who had earlier told me that the pap in a lifetime monogamous relationship was unnecessary. It was NOT within her purview to make that decision unilaterally and call for a pap test--but she did. Still rankles that she thought she knew better than either DH or me about how we seriously we take our marriage vows and monogamy. Too much arrogance, by far. IF I go back to see her, there will be a little heart-to-heart conversation first. Unfortunately, new doctor hunting, thanks to the grotesque state of our health care system, would have to take place in the state where our insurance plan provides in-network coverage. And that state is not the state in which I live.
As far as diabetes, even early detection does not necessarily stop adult onset from taking a toll. My aunt was a nurse, got obese, developed diabetes, had kidney failure, went on dialysis. Not a picnic by any stretch of the imagination. She was fully monitored by the medical establishment. One never knows about the path not taken but I cannot see that her quality of life was enhanced in any particular way, probably because she had to take responsibility for making dietary and lifestyle changes--and did not do so.
Edited to expand a paragraph and insert a preposition.
Edited 7/10/2009 8:24 am ET by jabberwocka
Jabberwocka
I happen to work in fund raising & patient services, for a leading cancer organization. One of the services I am in charge of is providing wigs to cancer patients. We have a form they fill out so we can collect facts & figures. The information is used
My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. His PSA test at the time of detection was 7, which is quite dangerous. Had it not been for this simple blood test, he would have never known anything was wrong and the cancer would have most likely spread and killed him.
I don't share the same conviction or faith. We've been told that the actions of BushCo saved us from further attacks by Al Qaeda. Can't be proved. Ditto cancer and its current treatments.
If there is truly a drug in trials which only attacks cancerous growths and turns them off, then such a treatment would definitely be a breakthrough.
My objections regarding conventional medicine have always been to the barbarous way cancer has been attacked. Takes a terrible toll on the patient, in some cases more than that which the cancer itself might have cost. My mother died under the the tender ministrations of cancer "specialists", my father is being whittled down to a nubbin by ongoing "treatments" for skin squamous cell lesions. What's more, these treatments are not cures. He also had the lobe of one lung removed for what docs said were "precancerous cells at the microscopic level" and suffered radiation "therapy" which was meant to eradicate cancer on his tongue. It also zapped his salivary glands (how cool is that!) and thus made his mouth tender and susceptible to both fungal infestations and tooth decay. But he didn't die of cancer. Of course, we do not know that he would have died without these debilitating treatments, either! He recently had a prostate exam which left him in pain for a protracted period of time after which it was decided that he would just be "monitored"--at the age of 87. I am seriously underwhelmed by all of it.
Most of us have bought the line we've been sold for years about early interventions. As regards cancer stats, I have yet to see any figures which can't be jiggered with to deliver a foregone conclusion. Soooo, IMHO, the science is not there to back cancer detection/treatment, and neither is the logic.
While I am hopeful about the future, particularly in regards to that new drug, my own experience is to stay the hell away from oncologists and medical screenings for any conditions which involve being treated with potent drugs, serious surgery, or near-lethal levels of radiation.
Jabberwocka
Your work must be rewarding. Kudos those working in that field.
"I think it's the chemicals in the plastic we use in our lives. It's used for our food products, drinking products, cooking & storage items. It's in our homes, our cars, it's everywhere."
>"Tests have shown that the chemical can promote human breast cancer cell growth as well as decrease sperm count in rats, among other effects."<
From.... Plastic (not) fantastic
http://www.mindfood.com/at-plastic-compound-hormone-breast-cancer.seo
According to this info.......
Which Plastics Are Safe?
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/which-plastics-are-safe.html#
>"Tests have shown that the chemical can promote human breast cancer cell growth as well as decrease sperm count in rats, among other effects."<
I too am thankful for vigilant doctors that monitor my health. My first polyp was found when I was in my early 20's & since then have had several removed. My Crohn's is pretty much dormant now
Study: 1 in 3 breast cancer patients overtreated
By MARIA CHENG – 16 hours ago
LONDON (AP) — One in three breast cancer patients identified in public screening programs may be treated unnecessarily, a new study says. Karsten Jorgensen and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen analyzed breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after government-run screening programs for breast cancer started in parts of Australia, Britain, Canada, Norway and Sweden.
The research was published Friday in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal. Jorgensen and Gotzsche did not cite any funding for their study.
Once screening programs began, more cases of breast cancer were inevitably picked up, the study showed. If a screening program is working, there should also be a drop in the number of advanced cancer cases detected in older women, since their cancers should theoretically have been caught earlier when they were screened.
However, Jorgensen and Gotzsche found the national breast cancer screening systems, which usually test women aged between 50 and 69, simply reported thousands more cases than previously identified.
Overall, Jorgensen and Gotzsche found that one third of the women identified as having breast cancer didn't actually need to be treated.
Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can grow too slowly to ever affect patients. As it is impossible to distinguish between those and deadly cancers, any identified cancer is treated. But the treatments can have harmful side-effects and be psychologically scarring.
"This information needs to get to women so they can make an informed choice," Jorgensen said. "There is a significant harm in making women cancer patients without good reason."
Jorgensen said that for years, women were urged to undergo breast cancer screening without them being informed of the risks involved, such as having to endure unnecessary treatment if a cancer was identified, even if it might never threaten their health.
Doctors and patients have long debated the merits of prostate cancer screening out of similar concerns that it overdiagnoses patients. A study in the Netherlands found that as many as two out of every five men whose prostate cancer was caught through a screening test had tumors too slow-growing to ever be a threat.
"Mammography is one of medicine's 'close calls,' ... where different people in the same situation might reasonably make different choices," wrote H. Gilbert Welch of VA Outcomes Group and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Research, in an accompanying editorial in the BMJ. "Mammography undoubtedly helps some women but hurts others."
Experts said overtreatment occurs wherever there is widespread cancer screening, including the U.S.
Britain's national health system recently ditched its pamphlet inviting women to get screened for breast cancer, after critics complained it did not explain the overtreatment problem.
Laura Bell of Cancer Research UK said Britain's breast cancer screening program was partly responsible for the country's reduced breast cancer cases.
"We still urge women to go for screening when invited," she said, though she acknowledged it was crucial for women to be informed of the potential benefits and harms of screening.
On the Net:
* http://www.bmj.com
http://tinyurl.com/l7cv5l
Jabberwocka
Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can grow too slowly to ever affect patients. As it is impossible to distinguish between those and deadly cancers, any identified cancer is treated.
It sounds like they want to play Russian Roulette.
If a screening program is working, there should also be a drop in the number of advanced cancer cases detected in older women, since their cancers should theoretically have been caught earlier when they were screened.
Depends on the cancer. Some types are extremely aggressive. I have heard of countless cases of woman who had a clean mammogram 6 months prior to finding a marble sized
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