drgo on Nostr: Well, about radiation, it’s true that ionizing can cause cancer. We know this from ...
Well, about radiation, it’s true that ionizing can cause cancer. We know this from dropping atomic bombs on Japan and irradiating animals with high doses. At high doses, there is a linear relationship between dose and probability of cancer. If we _assume_ this linear relationship holds for low doses, it would be reasonable to expect about 1 in 70,000 mammograms to cause cancer.
Compared to 1 in 12 women being diagnosed with breast cancer, the expected cancer rate from mammogram radiation is not that bad. Not that we should be careless in using radiation, but underutilization is a far bigger concern.
But the real question is, at the end of the day, do fewer women die of breast cancer because of mammograms?
This requires mammograms to detect cancer and therapy to be effective; not all that long ago, breast cancer surgery was not always of the right spot…but the modern approach is to put a wire through the skin and through the cancer or a pair of wires around the cancer far enough so that if the surgeon cuts out around the tip of the wire the margins should be adequate. By forcing proper surgery in this manner, mammograms are measurably more effective in preventing death from breast cancer. But proving this takes decades.
Anyhow, ionizing radiation is everywhere, including in the potassium found in a banana. And we can measure radiation in tiny amounts very close to zero. One mammogram is roughly 900 bananas worth of radiation.
As far as cardiac surgery, such surgeries are far less common now than 25 years ago. Between cholesterol drugs, cardiac stent advancements, less trans fats and less smoking, something is making these surgeries less common…and during that transition from massively expensive to only moderately expensive treatment will have obvious conflicts of interest that take time to settle with data.
Compared to 1 in 12 women being diagnosed with breast cancer, the expected cancer rate from mammogram radiation is not that bad. Not that we should be careless in using radiation, but underutilization is a far bigger concern.
But the real question is, at the end of the day, do fewer women die of breast cancer because of mammograms?
This requires mammograms to detect cancer and therapy to be effective; not all that long ago, breast cancer surgery was not always of the right spot…but the modern approach is to put a wire through the skin and through the cancer or a pair of wires around the cancer far enough so that if the surgeon cuts out around the tip of the wire the margins should be adequate. By forcing proper surgery in this manner, mammograms are measurably more effective in preventing death from breast cancer. But proving this takes decades.
Anyhow, ionizing radiation is everywhere, including in the potassium found in a banana. And we can measure radiation in tiny amounts very close to zero. One mammogram is roughly 900 bananas worth of radiation.
As far as cardiac surgery, such surgeries are far less common now than 25 years ago. Between cholesterol drugs, cardiac stent advancements, less trans fats and less smoking, something is making these surgeries less common…and during that transition from massively expensive to only moderately expensive treatment will have obvious conflicts of interest that take time to settle with data.