[dlaxague]

What every woman needs for early detection of breast cancer is not just yearly mammograms, YES and MRIs for high risk, but self breast exams with biopsy of suspcious lumps and removal, or at least re-biopsy, of persistent and enlarging masses.

I'm here looking for something else but cannot resist mammography discussions. My concern with EE's statement about guilt r/t not getting her mammograms is that many will take her words to mean that if a woman has advanced bc, it's always due to lack of vigilance. Or the reverse side of that coin - if you get your mammogram you will not die of bc. It's so much more complicated than that.

IMHO, what every woman needs is not a mishmash of current screening methods, but something better. We do not have good enough methods of detecting breast cancer and even when we detect it "early" (dcis or ... argg .. what's the word? not atypia .. I'll remember it as soon as I hit send ) we don't know what to do about it. Right now we have to use what we have, but we should not settle for this - we need to push for better methods of screening and improved understanding of what to do with what we find.

BSE has not been proven to make any difference at all to survival. Even ACS no longer recommends BSE. There are no stats on CBE (clinical breast exam) either way - it may not improve survival either. Whenever this statement is made, women reply with "but Susie found her lump when doing BSE". Finding a lump does not necessarily equate with saving a life. Alas.

Debbie Laxague