Dr. Robert M. Kaplan, chairman of the department of health services at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, who with his colleague, Dr. Franz Porzsolt, an oncologist at the University of Ulm, wrote an editorial that accompanied the study, were persuaded by the analysis, and feel the implications are potentially enormous.

Dr. Barnett Kramer, director of the Office of Disease Prevention at the National Institutes of Health, had a similar reaction. People who are familiar with the broad range of behaviors of a variety of cancer, know spontaneous regression is possible, but what is shocking is that it can occur so frequently.

And Donald A. Berry, chairman of the department of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center said the study increased his worries about screening tests that find cancers earlier and earlier. Unless there is some understanding of the natural history of cancers that are found, the result can easily be more and more treatment of cancers that would not cause harm if left untreated.

Dr. Berry felt that it's possible that we all have cells that are cancerous and that grow a bit before being dumped by the body. Screening tests may pick up minute tumors that would not progress and might even go away if left alone (pseudodisease). Patients will be alarmed and exposed, perhaps needlessly, to the risks of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation.

Spontaneous remissions in cancer suggests that the body can heal itself. It seems like most apparently occur in just a few types of malignancies: malignant melanoma, renal cell cancer, low-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and neuroblastoma in children. However, spontaneous remissions do occur in vastly different other types of cancers.

The very existence of spontaneous remissions represents a threat to some in the cancer industry. But such anomalies can pave the way to a better understanding of the causes of cancer which can then lead to rational therapies. Historical observations of spontaneous remissions of breast cancer after the onset of menopause lead to approaches of hormonal treatment which is a mainstay of adjuvant and palliative therapy in breast cancer.

Regardless, spontaneous remissions represent an important clue as to how the body can defend itself against cancer. Researchers should think "outside the box" at this important phenomenon rather than see it as a threat to their conventional thinking and appreciate the insight it may provide to rational approaches to cancer treatment.

For some common cancers, it is not clear that early detection and treatment actually prolong patients' lives. Early detection may just mean patients spend a longer time knowing they have cancer, and yet die at the same time they would have died anyway if the tumor had been diagnosed later. A decision to forgo cancer screening can be a reasonable option.

Literature Citation: Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(21):2300, 2302-2303, 2311-2316.

"I've recently been introduced to Thermography and I am amazed!! It is a wonderful tool to add in the preventive screening routine."

What do you think the sensitivity of Thermography is for detection of 5 mm cancers?  And what are thermography false positive and false negative rates for detection of cancer?  I bet you don't have a clue.   Yet you spout about how wonderful and amazing test it is.  But that sort of behavior is on par as far as intelligence of most health consumers that go by their gut feelings when dealing with science.  If the gadget looks impressive, or is expensive it must be good, no?

But I have even seen US medical school trained female surgeon propose new cancer screening by doing duct washings for cytology.  The only problem with the wonderful test she proposed is there are at least 15 ducts in each breast, each tiny and difficult to cannulate.  So sampling cytology from only one or two ducts for detection of cancer is a ludicrous proposition to begin with.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with discussion and analysis, but the point is that one statistician's study does not mean that the "conventional wisdom is wrong".   As frequently happens, his complicated statistical model may be flawed.  It will be reviewed and analyzed, and other people will try to duplicate his results.  Until then, it is a mere unproven THEORY.  Obviously, you have already decided that the statistician is right, so good luck with your healthcare plans.  I have seen hundreds of people like you, who made bad decisions and lived to regret them.

It's too bad that some people (see previous repetitive comments) simply cannot ever accept that "conventional wisdon" is wrong at times. A large study (120K people) over 6 years that raises some very interesting points about the validity of current treatment methods should not be hidden. It should be discussed, analyzed and carefully considered. Kudos to Newsweek for having the guts to do so.

Finally, I think it is irresponsible of the newmedia, like Newsweek, to publish every medical theory paper that comes out, giving it an air of authenticity, HIGHLY CONFUSING the patients.   While it may make a great topic for reporting, many of these new theories/discoveries/propositions are eventually proven wrong by further studies and research.  In the meanwhile the doctors are forced to deal with their confused and skeptical patients.

"I am 'high risk' and I have NEVER had a mammogram. Nor do i ever intend to have one unless i develop symptoms (like a lump). It is indeed sad for a woman in her forties or fifties to die of breast cancer. I don'thave to worry about that I'm 65 already."

Naive statements, based on ignorance, unfortunately, that is really sad!!  Breast cancer tends to be more aggressive in younger women, but plenty of older women die of breast cancer.   One in 13 women develops breast cancer during their lifetime.   By the time you find a "lump" (BTW most lumps in breasts are noncancerous) , your cancer may have already disseminated to bones and/or lymphatics.  If it is found by mammography and less than 1 cm in size, your survival probability is excellent.  When it a mass or lump, it is more likely to have already spread, and your survival probability much worse.   Mammography is the best screening tool we have, that has been documented time and time and again.   People keep putting mammographic screening down, but there is no better alternative to early cancer detection.  Even very expensive new tests like MRI cannot find cancers that manifest themselves only by microcalcifications, and they also have a much higher rate of false positives.

"The treatment...cheno...causes more deaths than the disease due to the destruction of the immune system"

Chemotherapy is designed to kill rapidly multiplying tumor/cancer cells.  The side effect is of course that it also affects bone marrow and gastrointestinal cells which turn over also fairly rapidly.  Much depends on the type of chemo, stronger chemo has greater side effects.  So it is a balancing act, give enough to kill the tumor cells, but not too much to wipe out white and red blood cells, suppress immunity too much, or produce too much GI sideffects.  That's where the expertise of the oncologist comes in.  

Some statistician comes up with a highly questionable theory, not verified by anybody else in the world, and which makes little sense biologically.  yes, miracles happen, but most cancers are relentless and progressive.

all the cooks jump on the bandwagon and denounce mammography, chemo, drug companies and god knows what else.  

so if you think this statistician is right, by all means stop doing mammographic screening.  then you can tell us how things are when your cancer is disseminated and terminal.  maybe visit to Mexico for some naturotherapy will be useful.  

BTW, the mammography tech steps behind the screen because she is doing 30 to 50 mammograms each and every day.   so unlike the patient, who gets one low dose mammogram in a year, the tech would get a large cumulative dose occupationally, and therefore she must take precautions, i.e. be shielded.  get it?  it is not a difficult concept to grasp.

My mother got breast cancer in 1970 and just had a breast removed with some muscle and lymph glands.  No chemo, no radiation.  She recovered and it never came back.  Since then, three close relatives got breast cancer and they did not remove the breast, but instead got chemo and/or radiation.  The cancer seem to go away for a year or so, then they all died a slow painful death after the cancer spread, and the immune system was shot to hell.  I know it's just anecdotal, but medicine is so industry-driven and cliche wisdom driven by the needs of drug company's bottom line, honest real studies with empirical results are hard to come by.  Anecdotal is sometimes more reliable, if you hear enough stories.

The treatment...cheno...causes more deaths than the disease due to the destruction of the immune system....and the inability to fight off bacterial and viral infections. Most do not die of breats cancer but the demise of the immune system.

Younicorn I completely agree with you. One has to think that the repeaded exposure to radiation and at such close proximity cannot be good. If you think about it, have you ever seen the x-ray tech stand right there with you? No, they stand protected behind lead.

I personally have chosen not to get mammograms. I've recently been introduced to Thermography and I am amazed!! It is a wonderful tool to add in the preventive screening routine.

With no disrespect: Does the study not also suggest the possibility that; since women who get repeated mammograms have more cancers, statistically, than the non-screened women: the mammograms, themselves, are causing the increased cancers in the repeatedly screened women? Just a thought that seems kind of obviously worth considering. Thanks and blessings

Krazytrain111...Your post is in poor taste.  Your name fits you.

Women have been sold a terrible bill of goods re mammograms. Not only is their life extension value qtite small (and non-existent before age 50); not only do they cause life altering traeatment for cancers that may 'regress' or disappear; they also cause treatment for a condition (DCIS) that 75 to 80% of the time is not HARMFUL TO THE WOMAN. And these treatments cause a SEVERE harm to the quality of life.. for instance mastectomy is often recommended for DCIS even to it is 80% harmess. (gentlemen, would you have your you-know-what cut off for a condition that was hamless 80% of the time?)

I am 'high risk' and I have NEVER had a mammogram. Nor do i ever intend to have one unless i develop symptoms (like a lump). It is indeed sad for a woman in her forties or fifties to die of breast cancer. I don'thave to worry about that I'm 65 already.

Maybe a country that's smart enough to elect Barack Obama (something I thought would never happen) can produce women smart enough to know tjhat mammograms have been oversold, that they do NOT prevent breast cancer (the way colon exams can prevent colon cancer) that they produce truly terrible anxiety; that they may cause a totally unnecessary and severe reduction of your quality of life; that they cuase only a modest increase , at best, in your life expectancy and that they don't 'save your life' (the chances that you will die remain the same, 100%.)

Check out Dr. Tullio Simoncini, an oncologist in Italy who wrote the book titled,"Cancer is a Fungus.

And I highly recommend Doug Kaufmann's "The Germ That Causes Cancer". www.knowthecause.com.

I would assume that it isn't just true of breast cancer but the reality is when that lump is in your breast "watchful waiting" isn't an easy choice.