Accidental Blogger

It is not healthy to be paranoid about our health. But it is also not wise to be lackadaisical about common sense measures that can prevent the onset of disease. Innovations in medical technology and research make available to us prevention programs and information on life style changes that protect against life threatening and debilitating conditions. It makes eminent sense to avail of them when possible.

Over the past decade or so, mammograms became a preferred method for early detection of breast cancer. During this period the popularity of the technology rose steadily among women and their doctors. However this trend may be reversing. Just as breast cancer rates have shown the first drop in the past two years, so has the rate of screening by mammogram. Recently Elizabeth Edwards confessed that she had failed to get regular mammograms and she feels that she let her family down by neglecting to take steps which would have caught her breast cancer in the early stages. Why women are becoming complacent about mammogram is not clear. But that it might put some women at increased risk for undiagnosed breast cancer and therefore increased mortality, is most probably true.

What simple steps can women take to stay on top of this once a year (and not really that dreadful) screening schedule?

• Make sure you have a routine yearly physical. Your doctor is likely to remind you of a mammogram even if you forget.
• Do not schedule your mammogram within a week before the onset of your monthly period. The breasts are tender then and hurt the most at this time.
• Set up your mammogram at a facility which sends out yearly reminders. Sometimes bigger hospitals are better at this than your neighborhood imaging facility. They also have better technicians and radiologists.
• If you are pain averse, remember that the procedure just lasts a few seconds at each step. And the Big Squeeze is any day preferable to the Big C.

The full report here:

After rising steadily for decades, the proportion of U.S. women getting mammograms to screen for breast cancer has dropped for the first time, federal researchers are reporting today.

The overall rate at which women are undergoing regular mammograms fell 4 percent between 2000 and 2005, marking the first significant decline since use of the breast X-rays started expanding rapidly in 1987, the study by the National Cancer Institute and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

The reasons remain unclear, but researchers speculated that it could be due to factors such as increasingly long waiting times to get appointments, waning fears about breast cancer, the drop in hormone use after menopause, and the ongoing debate over the benefits and risks of the breast exams. Regardless of the cause, the trend is worrying breast cancer experts, who credit mammograms with playing a crucial role in reducing the death toll from breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer and cancer death among U.S. women.

This is very troubling," said Nancy Breen, who led the analysis published online Monday by the American Cancer Society’s journal Cancer. "If women are not getting mammograms, then their cancer may not be diagnosed until later stages, which could translate into higher mortality from breast cancer."

Most alarming, the drop was greatest — 6.8 percent — among women ages 50 to 64, the age group most likely to benefit.