Dr. H. Gilbert Welch MD, MPH in the New England Journal of Medicine in his article “Screening Mammography- A Long Run for a Short Slide”, Sept. 23, 2010, wrote “It is estimated that for one woman to avoid dying from Breast Cancer, up to 1,000 women will have at least 1 false positive test, half of whom will undergo biopsy and Breast Cancer will be over-diagnosed in 5 to 15 women, who will be needlessly treated with surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or a combination”
No screening can be 100% accurate. The question becomes are we doing more harm to women, than the benefit, which could be done in less invasive manners, at less of a health risk and monetary cost?
According to Dr. Deborah Pate DC, DACBR, the average radiation a woman will accumulate at 2 views for each breast, 1x a year from 55 to 75 is 20 Rads of radiation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors received 35 Rads all at once.
We know health and disease is a gradient of the accumulation of our habits. This combined with other exposure to x-ray (plane travel, security screening, dental x-ray, etc.) and our other environmental pollutants could be significant to the elderly population.
In meta analysis of 6 studies, research presented at the Radiologic Society of North America it was found that women with a family history of Breast Cancer, or women with Breast Cancer gene mutation, when exposed to radiation before 20 yrs old had a 2.5 times higher (that’s 250%) risk for Breast Cancer than their counter parts who were not exposed.
In this research it was also found (8,500 high risk women) with 5 or more mammograms increased Breast Cancer risk 2 fold (200%).
There is also a high percent of false positive testing 21-49% of the time. What is even more alarming is non- malignancy’s are now being dumped and treated as malignancy’s.
It seems that we may want to pursue less invasive screening, treatment and more prevention protocols before more women are harmed unnecessarily. For a list of research sites and articles Google Breast Cancer risk, ionizing radiation and breast cancer screening and risk for some eye opening data.
In Health & Service,
Dr. Roland F. Phillips BA, BS, D.C.