{"id":546451,"date":"2010-04-28T16:17:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18884161.post-1990085478249918313"},"modified":"2010-04-28T16:22:03","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T20:22:03","slug":"gmo-statistics-part-8-false-alarm-causes-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/546451","title":{"rendered":"GMO statistics Part 8. False alarm causes harm"},"content":{"rendered":"

False-positive mammograms have negative effects<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/a>(From breastcancer.org)<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
The number of false positives from mammograms are a major issue in the breast cancer screening debate. When a mammogram identifies an abnormality that looks like a cancer but turns out to be normal, it’s called a false positive.
<\/a>Ultimately the news is good: No breast cancer. But there is a cost to false positives: psychological stress and extra tests and procedures. A false positive requires follow-up with one or more doctors and usually more tests. The study reviewed here underscores what many women know: Worrying that you might have breast cancer and waiting to find out for sure causes a huge amount of anxiety.<\/div>\n
No screening test is perfect. A screening can raise a false alarm when there is no problem. A screening also can falsely reassure when there is a major problem. Mammograms are no exception. To make up for these limitations, you need more than mammography. You also need to:<\/p>\n
    \n
  • practice breast self-examination<\/li>\n
  • get regular breast exams by a doctor<\/li>\n
  • in some cases, get another form of breast screening, like ultrasound or MRI<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    This challenge that comes with breast cancer screening is NOT a good reason to delay or give up screening. The challenge should motivate doctors to find even better ways to screen for breast cancer\u2014techniques that minimize false positives and false negatives.<\/p>\n

    In the meantime, you can minimize how a possible false alarm affects you and maybe even lower the risk of a false alarm in the first place.<\/p>\n

    Ask your doctor if one mammography center is better than another. Staff members’ skill and the technology used at the center can affect the accuracy of mammogram readings.<\/div>\n

    Insist that your current mammogram be compared with older mammograms when being read. This has been shown to affect the quality of a mammogram interpretation.<\/p>\n

    Ask if the center routinely has a second person review any suspicious mammograms before the final interpretation is made. This also has been shown to improve the mammogram accuracy.<\/p>\n

    Know that there is always a chance that your mammogram may suggest breast cancer when there is no cancer. If your mammogram suggests cancer, take a deep breath and remember this fact. Then do what you need to do to find out for sure as quickly as possible.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    False-positive mammograms have negative effects (From breastcancer.org) The number of false positives from mammograms are a major issue in the breast cancer screening debate. When a mammogram identifies an abnormality that looks like a cancer but turns out to be normal, it’s called a false positive.Ultimately the news is good: No breast cancer. But there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}