A forum on healthcare policy and professional issues, by Glasgow-based GP and FT Weekend columnist Margaret McCartney
From the category archives:
..and if I remember much from histology, it often comes in shades of pink.
The NYT today has an interesting article; shock horror - cancer that might not be.
It focuses on the DCIS phenonema – if you have been reading for a while you’ll know that ductal carcinoma in situ is a ‘cancer’ that wasn’t known [...]
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I am reporting good news, for a change. The UK Breast Screening Service has said it intends to rip up the leaflet which is currently sent to women with breast screening appointments. A recent paper in the British Medical Journal outlined the kinds of uncertainties and likelihoods the authors thought would have counted as “fair [...]
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Pleased to see that ripples from the UK have now reached the US.
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This follows on from a post a couple of weeks ago about this paper in the BMJ and the duty of doctors to explain both pros and cons of breast screening to patients. Here is a letter and article on this subject today in the Times.
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For several years I have been trying – and, evidently, failing – to suggest that the information that women get about breast screening isn’t very balanced. The problem- as I see it anyway – is that services are geared to get women to turn up for screening. Whereas, I would like services judged not on [...]
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A very interesting paper just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study followed women before and after the introduction of a breast screening programme in Norway. They were compared to a control group of women who did not take part in the screening programme, but who would have been, had the programme been started in [...]
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When I was at medical school, hormone replacement therapy was not just the treatment of choice for the flushes and sweats of menopause. It was also thought to reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes, dementia, colon cancer, bone and even teeth loss.
Yet over the past few years new research has made many doctors reluctant [...]
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It seems so sensible to try and find breast cancers early. Yet the truth in medicine is often counterintuitive, and this is one such example.
The headlines today are about breast self examination – regular exams done by women themselves looking for lumps – being ineffective to reduce deaths from breast cancer.
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