Outside of the US

PS73

I was hoping to get some information.  I looked for census data outside of the US in terms of women being dx with Breast Cancer and their respective ages. 

Many of my friends have stated that the guidelines adopted by the task force are similar to their European country guidelines, so what is all of the huff about...

I would like to know if anybody has any data which shows the ages of European women who have been diagnosed with Breast Cancer?  It is my hunch that women in Europe are being dx at a much older age (per their mammo guidelines) than here in the US.  It is also my hunch that of the women being dx, these tumors are slower growing. Ive read that only 5% of Breast Cancer in the US are women under the age of 40 but I don't believe that figure, I don't think it's updated nor accurate.  Out of three of my friends in the US, we know so so many women in their thirties dx with BC (unrelated to this site).  What concerns me is that young women are being dx with aggressive forms of BC, the kind that takes around two years to grow - we don't have fifteen years to wait for testing and I worry that European women do not either.  There is a gap as we all know.  That gap includes women like myself with aggressive her2nu+++ tumors. 

Please nobody blast me or requote me in a negative fashion for sentence structure - it's counter-productive.  I am posting because I worry about my European girlfriends who believe that these guidelines are safe because that is what they have always used and none of them have cancer.  But...what if they do and are walking around with aggressive breast tumors just do not know it.

Thank you kindly for your feedback. xo

Lindissima

This post has been deleted by Lindissima.

LittleC

They too changed their guidleines just like the US is doing now, to 3 years, and had a HUGE increase in cancer victims like tripple.  They brought it back to every year because of the tremendous loss. I want to say it was England, but I don't remember for sure.  And I agree with you, how many are walking time bombs and don't know it.

konakat

Never mind!

PS73

Hopefully there is data available to answer this question.  Little C, thanks for your post.  It is frightening for everybody and I have concerns about my friends who (if) are walking around with breast cancer will have the proper care for a good prognosis. 

It appears that the incentive is to move toward socialized health plans.  I would not be surprised in the least if in four years we have a dramatic decrease of breast cancer cases only to applaud the new health plans accuracy.  However, I think it will be because of the lack of screenings available - if we can't detect cancer then how can anybody have it and let alone track it?  Not to go too far off on a tangent here but if we are minimizing testing due to cost, one would believe that prevention should rise up to the surface yet I can't use my flex dollars towards vitamins/supplements and gym memberships.  Per the IRS flex plan, my tax free money can be used to treat a cold yet not prevent it which imo is very counter-productive.  Will the new health plan address this?  Hmmmm...

Please konakat, respect my request of the sentence blasting, I don't want to deter posters from commenting. 

konakat

Sorry for b*tchiness -- delete isn't working...I'll just edit instead!

PS73

Facts would be great.  A healthy discussion is always welcomed   Weird though, you deleted your comment but it deleted from Lindissima who only wrote that she was wondering as well?  I think bcorg is on the fritz.

konakat

Well, that's strange!  Hmmmm.  Lindissima was deleted before mine was.  I hope she meant to!  maybe I can delete it again, or make it a little less b*tchy.  :-)

PS73

haha!  No need to delete!!  Im bitchy too.  Ive Been in a state of PMS for six months with nothing to show for it except an intense chocolate craving, stomach ache and sore boobs.

konakat

Oh noooooo!!!  Chocolate, mmmmmmm. Sorry about the rest!!

PS73

..nothing 'new moon' can't fix.  Its a guilty pleasure and my hubby is taking me to the movies to get me out of the house.

Lindissima

Sorry for the confusion.

I deleted my post because I realized my questions were actually a bit different from PS 73's.

I'm just wondering if anyone has stats on the number of women under 40 who actually are dx'ed in Europe and how that compares to ours and  also what  survival rates for that particular group(40 to 50) are in European countries.

I lived in Europe for several years and have many friends there, none of whom has been dx'ed with BC.  Not the case with my friends here where I know many, including under 50. (But I know that's anecdotal, so it doesn't qualify.)

I am opposed to the guidelines that just came out, but I believe there may be something to the hypothesis that some tumors regress or are so indolent they are not life threatening. I hope medical science figures it out, but until they do, I want my mammogram.

Anybody have stats on women in European countries? 

(Konakat, I think I'm ready to add that ice cream now.) 

mke

Well I tried to look it up for Canada, which basically has the quidelines suggested and while I found some statistics they really weren't in a form that would answer the question.  What I saw
( or could glean from graphs that I could barely read)  was that those diagnosed in their 40's were more likely to be a higher stage - not a big difference but there.  It was a based only on a relatively small sample - 2 easterm provinces.

The problem with relating personal experience is that it is almost always skewed.  I drive a Subaru Outback and I see them all over. There really aren't so many of them, but I notice them, so it seems there are more.  We have BC, people tell us about others with BC, it seems like there is more although there is surely enough.

That said, it does seem that there are more young women with BC, and I wonder about the validity of the stats they were working with.  I also wonder about the logic of writing off those very young women (from my view) who are most essential to their families.  I don't know what all went into these guidelines, but I'm thinking they didn't factor in everything.  If they are treating this as a public health issue there are a whole lot of issues.

iodine

I do believe they didn't consider Any newer info: ie: digital mammos and some of the other studies were listed as very old info. 

I understand the unit is addressing the wordage (IS that a word) of the recommendations and feel that their intent has been misreported.

As far as someone cking my sentence structure, go ahead, I'm sure it's Way off.  We old nurses were taught llittle about it, and frankly, I am not too worried, unless my point is not well made.  I did learn a great deal about nursing care and wish I could teach it to the newer nurses who didn't have the benefit of we oldbies.