Some Disturbing and Interesting Studies
A Norwegian study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2008 found something that at first glance seems incredible. In a study that compared one group of women who were screened for breast cancer by mammography every two years with another group who were screened at six-year intervals, what they found is that the group that was screened more frequently developed breast cancer at a 22% higher rate than the group that was tested less frequently.
At first glance, this might appear to validate the idea that mammography causes breast cancer. What the researchers believe, however, is that it is much more likely that in many cases the human immune system has the ability to stall or destroy breast cancer before it can really spread. It is already known that breast cancer sometimes disappears without any treatment, but this study appears to indicate this may be happening a lot more often than was previously believed. So even if mammography helps to find breast cancer in its early stages, perhaps many early stage breast cancers were never destined to develop into full-blown metastasized cancer anyway.
Two studies published in 2009 concluded that while mammograms were not a cancer threat for most women, they could be a threat to women at a high risk for developing the disease based on family history and/or genetic mutations. A peer-reviewed study in the Netherlands found women in high risk categories who were given regular mammograms early – in their 30s and especially in their 20s – overall were about 1.5 times more likely to develop breast cancer than high risk woman who were not given mammograms at all. This backed up a Johns Hopkins study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in that same year that similarly cautioned that even small amounts of extra radiation could trigger breast cancer development in some high-risk groups.
An Honest Assessment of Mammograms
In labeling the idea that mammograms can cause breast cancer a “myth,” medical science writers are essentially on solid ground. However, a woman in at least two high risk groups are so prone to developing cancer that even the miniscule dosages of modern mammograms may present an unacceptable risk, which could make medical (manual) breast exams, ultrasound and MRIs a better choice for detecting the presence of cancer in these women. And questions certainly can be raised about medical practices in decades past, and whether or not mammography was put into widespread use prematurely.
Whatever judgments we choose to make about the past, it does appear that in most instances, the modern mammogram is a good choice (but not the only choice) for discovering the presence of breast cancer. Nevertheless, more research clearly needs to be done into the ability of the human immune system to fight off cancer naturally even without any medical intervention.
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