Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is the term for medical products and practices that are not part of standard care. Standard care is what medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy and allied health professionals, such as registered nurses and physical therapists, practice. Alternative medicine means treatments that you use instead of standard ones. Complementary medicine means nonstandard treatments that you use along with standard ones.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
No Evidence Breast Self-Exams Cut Cancer Deaths
There is no evidence that the practice actually decreases deaths from breast cancer while it may actually double the number of unnecessary biopsies in women who do the exam compared with women who don't.
"At present, screening by breast self-examination or physical examination [by a trained health worker] cannot be recommended," two of the study authors, Jan Peter Kosters and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, stated in the review.
The current review, published in the most recent issue of The Cochrane Library, updates and corroborates information from a 2003 review of studies.
The American Cancer Society revised its guidelines five years ago based on emerging evidence and no longer recommends monthly breast self-exams. The monthly exam is now considered "an option" for women starting in their 20s.
The current review included two studies of almost 400,000 women in Russia and China. Women who did self-exams had 3,406 biopsies compared with only 1,856 biopsies in the group that did not do the exams. Differences in biopsy rates did not translate into differences in breast cancer mortality.
The China study found that rates of mastectomy and lumpectomy (or "breast-conserving" surgery) were similar regardless of whether women were doing self-exams or not.
As always, however, women who detect any change in their breast need to consult a doctor.
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