New Book Questions Mammography

[Debbie L.]

A whole BOOK on the topic! The bottom line for me is that this debate has been raging for so long, and each new contribution (whether a new study or just a new analysis of an old one) weights the teeter totter back and forth -- which says to me that IF there's a benefit to mammography it is NOT ENOUGH, and probably will never be enough. I'm ready to just let go of the debate and move on to other approaches to stopping breast cancer. In the meantime, let's use mammography since it's what we have, but let's not promote it as if it were the answer.

Intuitively, it sounds so appealing -- that early detection idea. But first of all, we don't know that early detection is the answer. We are realizing it has much more to do with the biology of the cancer cells (and perhaps their neighboring cells) than it does with size. And second of all, unless we're going to go lopping off breasts of half the female population, we do not know what to DO with ultra-early detection, even if we're able achieve it.

Debbie Laxague