I can't tell you how outraged I am about the article that says that breast self-examinations are not worthwhile.1 As a 5-year breast cancer survivor, I probably owe my life to the fact that I did breast self-examination and found a lump. It was tiny, but it was still cancer.
Your recommendation will put many women at risk. With breast self-examination there may be more biopsies of benign lumps, more worry and more expense for the medical system, but what price do you put on a human life? Would you tell men not to feel for testicular lumps? If they found one, wouldn't that require a biopsy? Wouldn't it cause worry? And, heaven forbid, it might cost the medical system money for treatment. Perhaps it would be better if all cancers were not found until they were untreatable. That would save the medical system lots of money.
Signature
Lauri Winters
Crystal, Minn.
Reference
- 1.Baxter N, with the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. Preventive health care, 2001 update: Should women be routinely taught breast self-examination to screen for breast cancer? CMAJ 2001;164(13):1837-46. [PMC free article] [PubMed]