The Case Against The Case Against Mammography
The overdiagnosis campaign reflects a lack of respect for women’s capacity to act rationally upon receiving an abnormal test result.
MammaPrint, Agendia’s Breast Cancer Test, Is Having A U.S. Moment. Can It Reduce Overtreatment?
The potential to reduce overtreatment, in women with a low chance of recurrence for which chemo is unlikely to be of benefit, is huge.
Companion Diagnostics? For Cancer Care, We Need Better Ones
These biomarkers should link patients to optimal therapy (when such exists), and lead some to decline therapy that’s unlikely to help. The CDx field is moving forward rapidly in oncology..
Why Women And Doctors Need To Know More About DCIS
DCIS accounts for approximately 1 in 5 breast cancer-ish diagnoses in the United States. The practical problem with DCIS is that most oncologists, surgical and medical, will admit they’re not sure what to do about it.
How To Avoid Overdiagnosis And Overtreatment Of Breast Cancer
If overtreatment is the problem, the solution is not by avoidance of breast cancer detection, but by better education of physicians and patients.
Why Women Shouldn’t Cower To Concerns About Overdiagnosis Of Breast Cancer
The statistical assault on breast cancer screening continues. JAMA Internal Medicine has published another analysis…
Study Highlights Social Factors Affecting Breast Cancer Surgery
A new study sheds light on social and economic factors that influence whether women with breast cancer get lumpectomy or mastectomy.
Understanding Angelina Jolie Pitt’s Cancer Risk And Her Decision To Tell About It
By telling her story, she helps break the mystery and stigma that deter honest and needed discussion about cancer-causing, inherited genetic mutations.
Mandatory Reporting Of Breast Density In Screening Mammograms. Why The Controversy?
Women have every right to know if they have dense breasts and if they’re at increased risk for a hidden tumor.
It’s Not Just About Survival: Why Some Breast Cancer Patients Opt For Surgery on Both Sides
Most women do well, for many years, after the smallest surgery possible to remove an invasive breast tumor. But the decision isn’t easy.
Time for Informed Consent: The FDA Considers Risks of Power Morcellators in Fibroid Surgery
Last week, a panel convened by the FDA deliberated over the risks and benefits of using power morcellators in gynecological surgery. In April, the agency issued an alert cautioning providers that the tools could spread malignant cells from an occult malignancy.
We Need to Talk About the Costs of Cancer Treatment
I used to think that physicians shouldn’t talk about money with their patients. That sort of conversation has the potential to render doctors’ work like an ordinary business transaction.
JAMA Review on Mammography Points to the Need for Better Ways to Advise Women and Detect Breast Cancer
This new JAMA article reviews the literature. At a glance, it may add to the growing perception among journalists, primary care physicians and others – including ordinary women – that mammography’s effectiveness has been, again, disproved.
Don’t Judge Her
What’s great about this piece, and what’s wrong about it, is that it comes from an individual woman.
How Much Do You Want Your Doctors To Say About Risks of Treatment?
This kind of paternalism, when a doctor assesses the risks and benefits, and spares the patient’s “knowing” seems anachronistic. But it may, still, be what many people are looking for when and if they get a serious illness.
The Placebo Debate: Is It Unethical to Prescribe Them to Patients?
Pills, liquid, or powder with no treatment value can be harmful to the doctor-patient relationship, which is predicated on a mutual trust, some say.
When ‘No’ Turns Positive in Medical Care and Education
The medical word of the month is a most definite “no.”
How to Avoid Death in the ICU
It was sometime in April, 1988. I was putting a line in an old man with end-stage kidney disease, cancer (maybe), heart failure, bacteria in his blood and no consciousness. Prince was on the radio, loud, by his bedside. If you could call it that…