The Breast News We've Heard

The doctors want you to know that links aren't "cause and effect." Just because when the women stop doing one thing "en masse" that something else happened does not mean there's a connection. That's why we exist! You see we don't care that there's no direct cause and effect - we think a link IF its reasonable, is good enough for us.

"New study links breast cancer to hormone therapy - The study by the Canadian Cancer Society found there was a significant decrease in the rate of new breast cancers among post-menopausal women between 2002 and 2004 -- coinciding with a huge drop in the use of hormone replacement therapy, or HRT. Many Canadian women stopped taking hormones in 2002 after a massive U.S. clinical trial -- the Women's Health Initiative -- suggested the risks of taking HRT outweighed the benefits. That study suggested taking hormones appeared to increase the risk of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and blood clots in the lungs." - Canadian TV News (CTV)

We want you to know that we'll take an indication or a general trend and go with that. When we do we'll tell you and won't just make it up. The bigger story was from "Sweden" and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. There IS a Scandinavian Journal of Sports Medicine but we didn't find the research. Actually it was more of a review of previous studies rather than any real new research. You'll probably see it or saw it in the news reports on all of the channels and in all of the newspapers.

"Conclusions - The availability of screening mammography was associated with a reduction in the rate of death from breast cancer, but the screening itself accounted for only about a third of the total reduction. (Funded by the Cancer Registry of Norway and the Research Council of Norway.) - The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)

More than two years ago when the federal government got together with the people "who know" who came up with the following recommendations that individuals not in the know disagreed with as too lenient. The recent review tends to reaffirm their suggestions and makes their recommendations valid. Or at least more so than the nay sayers.

"Women over 40 responded to changes in mammogram recommendations - Lisa Calvocoressi, Ph.D., of Yale University, and colleagues interviewed 1,451 women who received screening mammograms at 1 of 5 hospital-based clinics from October 1996 to January 1998, a period that intersected with the recommendation changes. After asking how often they believed women their age should have screening mammograms, the team found that the percentage of women aged 40 to 49 who endorsed annual screening increased from 49 to 64 percent. Further, 31.6 percent of women in the 40 to 49 age group who did not originally endorse annual screening changed their opinion and supported it in follow up interviews. Although women in their 40s said they supported annual screening mammograms, the researchers were not able to examine the link between belief and action. However, other studies have shown that after 1997, women in their 40s were less likely to have screening mammograms than women in their 50s and 60s. This study was funded in part by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality." AHRQ (July 2008)

The numbers from "Norwegian breast-cancer screening program" were added to other international numbers to equal a group that was forty-times (40) larger than the those interviewed in the US in 2008. We included the above information because of the differences between women under 40 and those over who "did not endorse" screening. Three (3) stories on breast and cancer prevention that were specific to PearlieMae's history and behavior prior to her illness.

"Sexual Function after Breast Cancer - The BUPA Foundation Health and Wellbeing after Breast Cancer Study is a prospective cohort study of 1,684 women recruited within 12 months of their first diagnosis with invasive BC. Each participant completed an enrollment questionnaire (EQ) and first follow-up questionnaire (FQ1) 12 months post-EQ... Of the 1,011 women in the analyses, 70% experienced sexual function problems and 77% reported vasomotor symptoms." - The Journal of Sexual Medicine (JSM)

OK that makes it four (4) stories but the last story is actually more of a "Duh!" than any real revelation or surprising truth. We've always been a little shy about the s-e-x talk. Well the women among us feel that way, the men on the other hand have a completely different point of view - naturally! We just wanted you to know more than a headline. BC (breast cancer) is to women what PC (prostrate cancer) is to men.