Breast Cancer? Breast Health!
The Wise Woman Way
by Susun S. Weed
Paperback - 380 pages
Published by Ash Tree Publishing
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Chapter 5.
Mammograms -Who Needs Them?Excerpt from Breast Cancer? Breast Health! By Susun S. Weed
Mammograms don't replace breast self-exams
Women find their own breast cancers most of the time. (Ninety percent of the time according to one English study.7)
Monthly breast self-exam (or breast self-massage) provides early detection at lower cost, with no danger-and more pleasure-than yearly screening mammograms.
Most breast cancers (80 percent) are slow growing, taking between 42 and 300 days to double in size. A yearly mammogram could find these cancers 8-16 months before they could be felt, but this "early detection" does little to improve the already excellent longevity of women with slow-growing, non-metastasized breast cancers.
The 20 percent of breast cancers that are fast growing are the trouble-makers. They can double in size in 21 days. Monthly breast self-exams are much more likely to find these aggressive cancers than are yearly mammograms. (A 21-day doubling cancer will be visible on a mammogram only 6 weeks before it can be felt.) If you massage or examine your breasts even six times a year, you can take action on fast-growing lumps. If you rely on mammograms exclusively, the cancer could grow undetected for months.
In a recent look at 60,000 breast cancer diagnoses in the United States, 67 percent were found by the woman or her doctor -and over half of these were not visible on a mammogram-while 33 percent were discovered by mammogram. (This may seem like a substantial number of cancers found by mammography, but the majority of them were in situ cancers, a controversial type of cancer that may-but often does not-progress to invasive cancer.)
Read the rest of Chapter 5 (click on any section below)
Mammograms - Who needs them?
All mammograms are x-rays.
Mammograms are inaccurate.
Mammograms can't tell if there's cancer.
Mammograms don't replace breast self-exams.
Mammographic screening increases risk of breast cancer mortality in premenopausal women.
Why I haven't had a baseline mammogram.
Mammograms aren't safe.
Screening mammograms lead to overtreatment.
Screening mammograms don't increase your chances of being cured . . . or of surviving longer.
Mammograms don't find cancer before it metastasizes.
Aren't mammograms life saving for women over 55?
Yearly screening mammograms aren't cost effective to society nor are they safe environmentally.
Is there a less risky way to participate in screening mam-mography?
Mammograms distract us from the need for societal commitment to true prevention.
Are there other ways to find early-stage breast cancers?
Mammograms don't promote breast health.
If You Decide to Have a Mammogram.
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