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birdwatcherBloomberg Top -- The report, published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that the rate of cancer among women who received biannual mammograms over six years in four Norwegian countries was 22 percent higher than those who didn’t. That may mean that tumors in those who weren’t tested regressed without being treated, researchers said.
“Our findings simply provide new insight on what is arguably the major harm associated with mammographic screening, namely, the detection and treatment of cancers that would otherwise regress,” said the researchers led by Per-Henrik Zahl at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health‘s epidemiology department in Oslo.
“Our findings simply provide new insight on what is arguably the major harm associated with mammographic screening, namely, the detection and treatment of cancers that would otherwise regress,” said the researchers led by Per-Henrik Zahl at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health‘s epidemiology department in Oslo.
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Date: 2008-11-25 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-11-26 10:31 am (UTC)http://radiology.rsnajnls.org/cgi/reprint/165/2/327.pdf
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Date: 2008-11-26 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 02:56 pm (UTC)the reason i am so vague is that this is something i was lectured on back in - 1993? maybe 1995 at most, and have not looked into it since. this was one of those "memorable" lectures by a venerable professor.
i am not sure you will find double-blind placebo-controlled trials, though! similar "danger of early detection" was said about prostate CA and to a lesser degree about colonic polyps with cancer potential.
as far as regression goes, any onc textbook will tell you that natural history of cancer is not a simple thing. one frequent example of regression in my specialty is a brain met without a primary.
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Date: 2008-11-26 03:13 pm (UTC)What exactly are you trying to tell though? Do you really believe that the 2nd one talks about cancer regression??? It's absolutely irrelevant as it talks about cases (extremely rare, by the way!!) of disappearance of "palpable masses" during the procedure; a suggested explanation is cyst rupture and the authors even further deem it therapeutic. Where's cancer regression?? Or dangers of the procedure, especially "carcinogenicity"?? But that one is at least a case report from physicians.
The 1st one is a theoretical (!!!!) study by some guys who evaluated strains and tensions in compressed tissues based on some idealized spherical
horsetumor model, did you read the abstract? Or you liked the title and just made me read it? It might have been an interesting study (which it is not) but it falls very, very short of demonstrating any real dangers. Oh, and by the way cancer cells need to become metastatic first in order to be able to colonize other tissues, but the authors are apparently unaware of that when they suggest the danger of "disseminating". Finally, even if they had a point and/or their model was more trustworthy, their statement has nothing to do with the original claim made above that the procedure is *carcinogenic*.If this is all you can come up with, I am afraid you are only confirming my point so far - that the original claims are absolutely wrong and based on nothing.
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Date: 2008-11-27 01:09 pm (UTC)Another thing that they never mention is that the study was prospective for treatment and retrospective for the control. They never say if they accounted for breast cancer deaths.
I do not know anything about breast cancer diagnosis, but diagnosis of some particular cancers, even common, sucks. They again extoll quality of Norwegian Cancer Registry, but weasel-like claim excellent record-keeping for solid cancers and provide references for not breast cancers. Claim about solid cancers is just not true.
Finally, their reference to spontaneous regression of melanoma is lame and weasel-like. When talking about metastatic melanoma it talks about regression in the main tumor. What does it tell me about the survival?
Having said all that, some of their control group, as they say, did get occasional mammogram, so their results is underestimation.
All in all, it cries for long-term follow-up study in so many years to settle it. The gold record is autopsy.
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Date: 2008-11-27 02:46 pm (UTC)26. Harvei S, Tretli S, Langmark F. Quality of prostate cancer data in the cancer registry of Norway. Eur J Cancer. 1996;32A(1):104-110. PUBMED
27. Tingulstad S, Halvorsen T, Norstein J, Hagen B, Skjeldestad FE. Completeness and accuracy of registration of ovarian cancer in the cancer registry of Norway. Int J Cancer. 2002;98(6):907-911. FULL TEXT | ISI | PUBMED
Since when prostate and ovarian cancers comprise solid cancers ?
PS. From the reference 27
Date: 2008-11-27 02:51 pm (UTC)Let's recall their statement "solid tumor ascertainment rates". It is correct that ovarian cancer is ascertained as solid tumor with Cancer Registry. But only 95.3% is registered as ovarian cancer. And the latter number matters for cause-specific analysis. So, how come it is not a weasel-like statement?
Re: PS. From the reference 27
Date: 2008-11-27 04:45 pm (UTC)Re: PS. From the reference 27
Date: 2008-11-27 06:39 pm (UTC)in posting this article?
Re: PS. From the reference 27
Date: 2008-11-27 06:54 pm (UTC)Теперь, почему именно я запостил эту статью? Потому что она привлекла мое внимание. А что, это какая-то особая, деликатная тема? Надо было сначала с кем-то посоветоваться?
Re: PS. From the reference 27
Date: 2008-11-27 07:48 pm (UTC)And you didn't recognize that it does not provide survival information or does not look beyond 6 years for long-term prognosis ?
It reminds me of these cholesterol-lowering trials, where the researches talk about lower rate of heart disease in treatment group w/out mentioning that overall mortality isn't different between groups.
Re: PS. From the reference 27
Date: 2008-11-27 08:04 pm (UTC)Re: PS. From the reference 27
Date: 2008-11-28 10:39 am (UTC)That the article is published doesn't mean that all the questions were answered.
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