Sharing w/others – lessons learned

Leah Siegel fought hard against cancer, enduring blood transfusions and chemical burns and painful sores. She was haunted by the idea that her children would grow up without any memory of her.

From the moment doctors told her she had stage four breast cancer in 2008, she worried most about leaving her children.  “I just need 10 years,” she told her oncologist. But the cancer had already had spread to her liver and bones. Doctors gave her two to three years.

According to this story in the Dallas News:

“Leah told doctors she would try any treatment, no matter the side effects … doctors seemed to be jumping from drug to drug. ‘There wasn’t a real plan anymore,’ said Leah’s husband, Eric … Leah agreed to try a powerful drug cocktail that caused the most painful side effects yet. Flaming blisters appeared on her hands and … The drugs burned sores in her mouth and throat. For weeks, she couldn’t eat. She began to worry that she would starve to death.”

No one should have to go through this.  I believe you can virtually eliminate your cancer risk if you follow risk reduction strategies that have not been formally “proven” yet by conservative researchers.  You can save yourself and your family from a cancer diagnosis. PostID=279933″

In 2006, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an influential breast cancer survivors’ organization, released a study which estimated that in 90,000 cases, women who received a diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (D.C.I.S.) or invasive breast cancer either did not have the disease or received incorrect treatment.

Advances in imaging technology over the past 30 years have meant that pathologists must render opinions on ever smaller breast lesions. Discerning the difference between benign lesions and early stage breast cancer is a particularly challenging area of pathology.  Diagnoses of D.C.I.S. have a history of confusion, differences of opinion, undertreatment, and overtreatment.

According to the New York Times:

“There is an increasing recognition of the problems, and the federal government is now financing a nationwide study of variations in breast pathology, based on concerns that 17 percent of D.C.I.S. cases identified by a commonly used needle biopsy may be misdiagnosed. Despite this, there are no mandated diagnostic standards or requirements that pathologists performing the work have any specialized expertise, meaning that the chances of getting an accurate diagnosis vary from hospital to hospital.” PostID=277534″

It may be an unthinkable notion for those raised on the message that early cancer detection saves lives, but it is possible that tumors are actually being found too early.

Cancer screenings can unearth tumors that never would have threatened the person’s life.  But their aren’t good ways to tell in advance which tumors won’t be dangerous.

The Washington Post reports:

“Most men over 50 have had a PSA blood test to check for [prostate cancer] even though major medical groups don’t recommend routine PSAs, worried they may do more harm than good …  A study of 76,000 U.S. men, published last year, concluded annual PSAs didn’t save lives.”

Mammography is also increasing diagnoses of tumors deemed very low risk. A found that nearly one-quarter of breast tumors found by mammograms may be overdiagnosed. PostID=272081″

Americans today receive far more medical radiation than ever before. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy.

Often, patients know little about the harm that can result when safety rules are violated and ever more powerful and technologically complex machines go awry. The complexity of medical radiation technology has created new avenues for error — through software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures or inadequate staffing and training. When those errors occur, they can be deadly.

Regulators and researchers can only guess how often radiotherapy accidents occur. Accidents are chronically underreported, and some states do not require that they be reported at all. Last year a Philadelphia hospital gave the wrong radiation dose to more than 90 patients with prostate cancer — and then kept quiet about it. In 2005, a Florida hospital disclosed that 77 brain cancer patients had received 50 percent more radiation than prescribed because a powerful linear accelerator had been programmed incorrectly for nearly a year. PostID=241769″

More than 7,000 women a year screened for breast cancer are wrongly told they have the disease. The misdiagnoses lead to unnecessary treatment, including mastectomies. After an independent review of the UK’s NHS program for women aged 50 to 69, scientists concluded that the benefits of screening have been exaggerated and women are not warned […]

As Democrats tout the American Medical Association’s endorsement of their health care overhaul, critics are saying it’s no surprise the Democrats were able to gain the AMA’s support — thanks to a little-known monopoly that sends millions of dollars to the trade group each year. The AMA holds the exclusive rights to the medical billing […]