Mammograms Vs. Thermography

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Misty L. Trepke

http://www..com

 

Medicine Mum on Mammography: Do The Math -- Think Thermography

October 23, 2000 from AlternativeMedicine.com

 

In September, a large-sample, long-term Canadian study proved that

an annual mammogram was no more effective in preventing deaths from

breast cancer than periodic physical examinations for women in their

50s.

 

The study was co-authored by Cornelia Baines, a professor of public

health sciences at the University of Toronto and appeared in the

Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In the study of almost

40,000 women ages 50 to 59, half received periodic breast

examinations alone and half received breast examinations plus

mammograms. All learned to examine their own breasts as well.

 

By 1993, 13 years after the study began, there were 610 cases of

invasive breast cancer and 105 deaths in the women who received only

breast examinations, compared with 622 invasive breast cancers and

107 deaths in those who received breast examinations and

mammograms. " They found smaller cancers, but ultimately the

mortality rate was the same,¹¹ said Suzanne Fletcher, a professor of

preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School. She added that cancer

screening programs are built on the assumption that " finding it

earlier is finding it better. . . . This study questions that

assumption. "

 

In fact, truly early detection would be better, but by the time a

tumor has grown to a sufficient size to be detectable by either a

mammogram or a physical examination, it has been growing for several

years, and achieved more than 25 doublings of the malignant cell

colony.

 

As Alternative Medicine has maintained for years, mammograms do far

more harm than good. Their ionizing radiation mutates cells, and the

mechanical pressure can spread cells that are already malignant (as

can biopsies). In 1995 the British medical journal The Lancet

reported that, since mammographic screening was introduced in 1983,

the incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which represents

12% of all breast cancer cases, has increased by 328%, and 200% of

this increase is due to the use of mammography. This increase is for

all women: Since the inception of widespread mammographic screening,

the increase for women under the age of 40 has gone up over 3000%.

 

Mammogram interpretation is often wrong. In 1996, the journal

Archives of Internal Medicine published results of a test of 108

radiologists throughout the United States. The test used a set of 79

mammograms where the diagnosis had been verified by subsequent

biopsies, surgeries or other follow-up. The radiologists missed

cancer in 21% of the films, thought 10% of the women with no breast

disease had cancer and thought 42% of benign lesions were cancerous.

 

Further, mammograms are not diagnostic and too frequently lead to

unnecessary breast biopsies, which are an expensive, invasive

surgical procedure that causes extreme anxiety, some pain and often

physical harm to many women who do not have cancer.

 

According to the 1998 edition of the Merck Manual, for every case of

breast cancer diagnosed each year, from 5 to 10 women will

needlessly undergo a painful breast biopsy. Statistically, this

means that any woman who has annual mammograms for 10 years has at

least a 50% chance of having at least one biopsy -- even if she

never develops breast cancer.

 

Why, then, does mainstream medicine keep recommending mammograms? Do

the math: a $100 mammogram for all 62 million U.S. women over 40,

and a $1,000+ biopsy for 1-to 2-million women, is an $8 billion per

year industry. There is a superior alternative: advanced

thermography, which does not use mechanical pressure or ionizing

radiation, and which can detect signs of breast cancer years earlier

than either mammography or a physical exam.

 

Mammography cannot detect a tumor until after it has been growing

for years and reaches a certain size. Thermography is able to detect

the possibility of breast cancer much earlier, because it can image

the early stages of angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is the formation of a

direct supply of blood to cancer cells, which is a necessary step

before they can grow into tumors of size.

 

Thermographic breast screening is brilliantly simple. Thermography

measures the radiation of infrared heat from our body and translates

this information into anatomical images. Our normal blood

circulation is under the control of our autonomic nervous system,

which governs our body functions without our conscious will.

 

To screen for breast cancer, a thermographer blows cool air over a

woman¹s breasts. In response, our autonomic nervous system reduces

the amount of blood going to the breast, as a temperature-regulating

measure. However, the pool of blood and primitive blood vessels that

cancer cells create is not under autonomic control and is unaffected

by the cool air. It will therefore stand out clearly on the

thermographic image as a " hot spot. "

 

 

 

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

 

Earlier this month I reviewed a study from the National Cancer

Institute which showed that mammograms don't work to reduce the risk

of death from breast cancer. Their analysis confirms what we have

suspected for some time: that mammograms are not a good idea. Most

physicians recommend them for fear of being sued by a woman who

developed breast cancer in which he did not advise to get one. Now

natural medicine physicians can rest comfortably and encourage women

to get a thorough breast examination for abnormalities, as well as

performing frequent self-examinations.

 

Thermography, along with regular breast self-exams, does seem to be

a reasonable alternative to screen for this prevalent form of cancer

among women.

 

For more information on this topic, see this week's story by

Sherrill Sellman entitled " Seeing Deception is your Only Protection:

The Breast Cancer Awareness Month Story " .

 

You can also go to the International Academy of Clinical

Thermography referral site.