[bejuce]

This article is very confusing and makes me angry. How can they say that breast cancer screenings may not be helping as much when more and more breast cancers are being diagnosed? The article itself says that "researchers report a 40 percent increase in breast cancer diagnoses and a near doubling of early stage cancers, but just a 10 percent decline in cancers that have spread beyond the breast to the lymph nodes or elsewhere in the body." The 10 percent decline is definitely due to the increased screenings, and the fact that there has been a doubling in early stage cancers is actually a good thing, isn't it? The overtreatment of these cancers is not due to the additional screening, but to the lack of understanding about how these cancers work.

There needs to be a focus on treatments that work, rather than debating whether the additional screenings are helpful. If one were to read this article and the NBCC recommendation that a BSE does not save lives, then how would a cancer be found??? I'm confused and angry at these mixed messages. I found my lump myself, and was refused a mammogram because I was still breastfeeding. If I had not been persistent, who knows where I would be now.