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Sound Detects Breast Cancer: article below this one ____________________________________________________________________ |
The United States Preventive Services (USPS) Task Force recently released a recommendation that women in their 40's should NOT have yearly mammograms. This recommendation obviously conflicts with those of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and other groups.
But many people wonder if the ACS recommendations aren't some form of recruitment. After all, five radiologists have served as presidents of the American Cancer Society. The American College of Physicians, however, made recommendations similar to the USPS a couple of years ago and the National Breast Cancer Coalition has routinely warned women of the limitations and potential for harm that mammograms hold.
The USPS Task Force found that "Radiation-related breast cancers occur at least 10 years after exposure. Radiation from yearly mammograms during ages 40-49 has been estimated to cause one additional breast cancer death per 10,000 women."
The National Cancer Institute states that among women under 35, mammography could cause 75 cases of breast cancer for every 15 it identifies. There's really very little reason to have regular mammograms and plenty of reasons not to.
Dangers of Mammography
Mammograms expose your body to radiation 1,000 times greater than a chest x-ray. Alternative Medicine magazine says, "Their ionizing radiation mutates cells, and the mechanical pressure can spread cells that are already malignant (as can biopsies)." Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a type of cancerous cell present in 10% of all women and in 15-60% of women in their 40's. A mammogram might pick this up, but, as Dr. Michael Cohen of Sloan-Kettering says, "It may stay there a women's whole life and never invade surrounding tissue...we don't know how to tell the one that won't spread from one that will."
It's treated as if it will. Surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy...a host of invasive and dangerous steps are taken to treat abnormalities that might never have progressed. Since mammography screening was introduced, DCIS has increased by 328% and some believe that 200% of these findings are due to the radiation and pressure to which women are subjecting during mammograms.
Mammography screenings induce a lot of unnecessary anxiety and unnecessary procedures. A large-scale Swedish study has found that 726 of 60,000 were referred to oncologists for treatment, but 70% were actually cancer-free!
The Lancet reports that of the 5% of referrals after mammograms, 93% are false positives. 90% of false positives are due to unclear readings because of breast density. The creator of the mammogram proclaimed that only about six radiologists in the US could read them correctly.
Another study, conducted by members of the Radiological Society of North America, verifies the fact that annual mammograms may be responsible for causing breast cancer in some women. In those that are predisposed to cancer according to family history, radiation from a mammography increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 150%!
A Canadian study found a 52% increase in mortality from breast cancer in young women that get regular mammograms. Another Canadian study of 500,000 women aged 40-49 found that mammograms found more tumors than unscreened women but no lives were saved because of it. In fact 36% more of the screened women died than unscreened!
All of us have cancerous cells in our body, but our immune system is able to fight them very effectively, provided we don't have nutrient deficiencies or toxicity of some sort in our bodies. It is often the undue stress that occurs when a person believes they have cancer that causes them to succumb to a lack of hope.
Dr. Joseph Mercola agrees, "Just thinking you may have breast cancer, when you really do not, focuses your mind on fear and disease, and is actually enough to trigger an illness in your body. So a false positive on a mammogram, or an unnecessary biopsy, can really be damaging."
Dr. Russell Blaylock estimates that annual screenings increase the risk of breast cancer by 2% each year. The younger a woman is when she starts having mammograms, the higher her risk. Over 10 years, cancer risk rises 20%.
Dr. John Gofman believes that 75% of breast cancer cases could be avoided by minimizing exposure to radiation. Another danger is that the breast tissue of premenopausal women is highly sensitive to radiation. Breast cancer risk increases by 1% for every rad unit of radiation. 10 mammograms increase this risk to 20%, and yet 40% of women over 40 have had mammograms since the 1960's, when the rad dose was 5-10 (rather than the present 2) per screening. This is why Dr. Gofman believes that breast cancer has become the leading cause of death in American women aged 40-55-radiation from mammograms causes cancer.
A Better Option
Thermography is a new technology that does not use radiation or compression to screen breasts, nor does breast density affect its results. This process measures infrared heat from your body and interprets the information in images. Using thermography can help you detect cancerous tumors up to 10 years earlier than mammograms. Yet even after battling breast cancer herself, my mother does not feel the need for routine screening. She understands that while even safe screening tools like thermography can detect cancer, it cannot prevent the cancer in the first place.
Dr. Axe's Action Steps:
I highly recommend that women do NOT receive mammograms at any point in their life. A much safer method of screening for potentially cancerous tumors in the body is through thermography. I periodically invite certified clinical thermographers to offer appointments on location at my clinic.
| Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joshua_Axe |
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Sound Detects Breast Cancer
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0810-sound_detects_breast_cancer.htm
Physicists Develop Ultrasound Alternative To Mammograms
August 1, 2008 — Radiologists suspend a patient's breast in water, and then send sound waves through the water in order to image breast tissue. The device uses 256 ultrasonic sensors to assemble 50 to 70 two dimensional slices into a three dimensional image of the breast that reveals cancers larger than five millimeters in diameter.
Each year more than 18-million women get a mammogram. But up to 15% of mammograms miss tell-tale signs of cancer. Now, a new technology that's better at finding cancer and saving lives could be available.
"I was just re-diagnosed in December and this time I had a mastectomy, and it was a little bit rougher ride for me," says Judy Ballard, a breast cancer patient and survivor.
And Ballard's still at risk for it to return. But, she's getting a follow-up screening with a new technology that uses water.
"It feels like a little sauna on your breast. The water temperature is warm, it's very relaxing, it's comforting," Ballard explains.
"So far it's been able to see almost all the cancers that are above five millimeters," says Peter Littrup, M.D., radiologist at Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, Mich.
Developed by physicists and radiologists, the new technology, called computed ultrasound risk evaluation device -- or CURE -- does not use radiation, lasts one minute and is completely pain-free.
"We can get images with a lot more information than we've currently been able to. In fact we're trying to also use this to reduce unnecessary biopsies," Dr. Littrup says. While the woman's breast is suspended in water, ultrasound sensors transmit sound waves through the water. The device measures how the sound waves travel through the breast tissue. Computer images help doctors better pinpoint cancerous tissue.
"Based on the more limited trails that we've done so far, it does in fact to appear to be more accurate than mammography," says Neb Duric, Ph.D., a physicist at Karmanos Cancer Institute.
Ballard's clinical trial scan results are being studied. Other tests show her cancer has not come back.
"I'm a strong person, my attitude was it's not going to get me," Ballard says. A positive outlook to maintain a cancer-free life.
HOW ULTRASOUND WORKS: Ultrasound is a medical imaging technique that uses high-frequency sound waves and their echoes. It is similar to how bats navigate in the dark, and the SONAR used by submarines underwater. The machine transmits high-frequency sound pulses into the body using a probe. The sound waves travel through the body and bounce off any boundaries, such as between fluid and soft tissue, tissue and bone. Some of the sound waves are reflected back to the probe, while others travel further through until they bounce off another boundary. All the reflected waves are recorded by the machine, which then calculates the distance each sound wave traveled based on how long it took the sound wave's echo to return. This data is used to form a two-dimensional image based on the distances and intensities of those echoes.
ABOUT BREAST CANCER: Breast cancer is a type of cancer in which cells in the breast become abnormal and grow and divide uncontrollably, eventually forming a mass called a tumor. Some tumors are benign, meaning that they do not invade other types of tissue, although if they become big enough, they can interfere with some bodily functions, such as the flow of blood or urine. Malignant tumors have cells that can invade nearby tissues. When a cancer "metastasizes," cells from the original tumor break off and travel to other parts of the body via the blood or lymph systems. More than 75 percent of breast cancers begin in the milk ducts within the breast. The next most common site is in the glandular tissue that makes the milk.
The American Physical Society and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.
Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
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