ISP Magazine April 2014 | Page 8

THE CONS

Misdiagnosis:

Misdiagnosis is the outcome of inaccurate results from a mammogram. There are two forms of this detection flaw - False Negative Results and False Positive Results. False Positive results mean that a patient is incorrectly diagnosed with the disease when it doesn't exist in the breasts. Mammography can often times exaggerate results and pick up benign tumors, which cannot possibly affect the woman. On the other hand, False Negative results state that a patient does not have cancer, even when it may be within the breasts. This often occurs with this form of testing and has affected many in the past. Misdiagnosis concludes in unnecessary treatment, screening and stress, but may also cause death to those who didn't know they had cancer to begin with. Surprisingly, one in five mammograms don't catch cancerous tumors that may exist in a patient's breasts, while 90% end up with unclear results. Therefore, the use of mammography causes more stress, more treatment and more screening.

Discomfort & Mental Health:

In some cases, mammography tends to be very uncomfortable. Looking through the perspective of a patient, it may be true that mammography not only poses potential health risks, but also excessive discomfort that could eventually affect their mental health. Annual mammography is a burden towards a woman's regular life and takes up much of one's personal time. Although a single mammogram may take about 10 to 15 minutes (excluding wait time), annual screening sums up to hours worth of screening in a lifetime. This forces women into spending hours of unnecessary time in a doctor's office. Aside from this, breast cancer screening puts women in an awkward position considering they are using machine that applies pressure, squeezes and pulls on the breasts. When this happens, women may deem this as painful and extremely uncomfortable. Also considering religious reasons, patients may not appreciate their body being exposed in a room alongside a doctor. They might find it inappropriate and they may feel that it is against their beliefs to do so. Waiting for screening results also poses a concern for patients. After the screening procedure is over, patients tend to worry about the overall outcome of the test. The patients are concerned about their health and always think about the possibility that they actually have cancer. This causes a build up on anxiety and stress that women should not have to face every time they screen for breast cancer..

Physical Health:

The major drawbacks to this form of screening are its impacts to one's overall health. In recent studies done by the Canadian Breast Cancer Society, potential heath concerns have been discovered linked to the use of annual mammography. In fact, one of the major effects being looked into is the link between radiation and breast cancer. Women's health specialists are concerned that with the annual use of mammography the body will be exposed to enough radiation to cause breast cancer itself. Ironically, screening for breast cancer may cause breast cancer to begin with. Breast cancer specialists believe that the sum of the amount of radiation produced in a single mammogram can be linked to many cases of cancer. With this being kept in mind, patients must be familiar with the risks that they may face with screening annually.