How Mammograms Improve Survival but Not Mortality

[pnwmom]

15. Yes, this research does contradict that prior belief.

They are saying that the women who are "saved" as a result of early diagnosis of tiny cancers generally had very slow growing tumors that might never have killed them at all -- and even might have gone away on their own.

They are saying that many of the women in this category went through unnecessary treatment with significant adverse effects. (For example, radiation to the left breast has been shown to carry a risk of damage to the heart. )

You are right that the situation with breast cancer research is similar to that of prostate cancer research -- that early diagnosis based on the available tests, and treatment, don't seem to decrease mortality. It increases the survival rate -- meaning that you get to live with the cancer diagnosis for a few extra years because it's discovered earlier -- years when otherwise you would have felt perfectly fine. Instead, you undergo treatment that doesn't decrease your chance of dying from the disease.

Doctors have already changed their recommendations about prostate cancer. The question is if they will do the same for breast cancer.

Colonoscopies are in a different category. From everything I've read, removing precancerous colon polyps have been a success story, like treating early cervical cancer.