“The Rationale For Most (cancer) Screenings Are Strong If There Is A Good Test…”

“If there is a test but there’s problems with it, I often go over this with a patient and how to decide if it’s necessary.”

Add mammography to the list of cancer screenings where evidence has challenged “best practices.”

Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN reported in EveryDay Health that while early cancer detection can save lives, recent studies raise new doubts about the benefits of screening without considering the risks as well.

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“We Are Silently Irradiating Ourselves To Death.”

“… unless we change our current practices, 3 percent to 5 percent of all future cancers may result from exposure to medical imaging.”

CT, MRI, ultrasound, nuclear scan, PET scan – why not? Just to make sure.

An article in the New York Times noted: “ DESPITE great strides in prevention and treatment, cancer rates remain stubbornly high and may soon surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. Increasingly, we and many other experts believe that an important culprit may be our own medical practices: Of course, early diagnosis thanks to medical imaging can be lifesaving. But there is distressingly little evidence of better health outcomes associated with the current high rate of scans. There is, however, evidence of its harms.”

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