I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

I agree.  Until they can determine which ones will require tx, it is a mute point to talk about overtreatment.  It is still a guessing game for early stage cancers.  But, they are making some headway in discovering the details of the anatomy of a cancer cell.  Still wish they would put more $ into treatment of mets.

Blue - a wonderful baby (he looks like he is thinking hard!) to lift spirits.  Congratulations to you and your daughter's family.

The article...it was interesting, and depressing.  

“The five-year survival rate for breast cancer when caught early is 98 percent. When it’s not? It decreases to 23 percent.” Woloshin called that willfully deceptive The numbers are accurate, but five-year survival rates are a misleading measure of success, skewed by screening itself. Mammography finds many cancers that never need treating and that are, by definition, survivable. Meanwhile, some women with lethal disease may seem to live longer because their cancer was found earlier, but in truth, it’s only their awareness of themselves as ill that has been extended. “Imagine a group of 100 women who received diagnoses of breast cancer because they felt a breast lump at age 67, all of whom die at age 70,” Woloshin said. “Five-year survival for this group is 0 percent. Now imagine the same women were screened, given their diagnosis three years earlier, at age 64, but treatment doesn’t work and they still die at age 70. Five-year survival is now 100 percent, even though no one lived a second longer.”

I feel like I may have found my cancer "early," but it will could possibly make little difference to my survival had I done nothing.  Hormonals work 30-40% of the time with Luminal B's.  Chemo, by Oncotype standards, only gives me another 9% of the 27% recurrence rate I was given.  If I'm in the 50% category (hokey stats I did on the fly) of neither treatment helping, then I'll live exactly the same amount of time, treatment or not.  Maybe less, since chemo is destructive, not to mention QOL. 

Scratch above....we do this stuff to make ourselves feel better, to be sure.  Frankly, at this point in the game, I feel like nothing is going to cure me of this cancer and I'm Stage 1A.  Would I have done anything differently?? No, because the Pink/Medical establishment thinks all of this stuff prolongs or cures and I've been hearing it for years.   I honestly think there may be forces beyond anything chemo or hormonals address, including the cell environment.  I do believe in eradication of the tumor, though, and with brca, BMX, definitely.  << If this sounds confusing it's because I'm conflicted and confused about the the BC thing right now.  I don't feel my MO's have been honest with me about MY particular cancer.  They just keep giving treatments.

Alexandria - I had a small DCIS component in my IDC, and I've heard of so many women who aggressively treat DCIS and discover a small amount of IDC in pathology.  Ofcourse, it takes the argument back to my crap shoot theory above.  Does it all really matter.  Would those that survive, survive anyway?

Oh carp,Bren, E, and Athena.

Congrats Blue and great news suzie. What a bunch of ups and downs.

Blue, what a handsome little man! George will be so happy to have a brother -- and you will have two gorgeous hunks hanging around your house!



Athena, thinking of you and sending comfort vibes your way ....



Sandu & PiP, I must agree. I found the article interesting to a point (hell YES we need to focus on a cure -- we are all plenty aware of breast cancer now, thanks). And I, too, bristle at the suggestion that DCIS is overtreated and some of it can probably not be treated -- and women can go without mammos for a year or two because dx-ing them early doesn't make them live longer. Faugh! Those are aggregates and we are individuals. Yeah, some DCIS might not progress, but until you have an accurate way to figure that out, you'd better treat it all like it would progress. Mine was supposed to be GONE -- less than 5% chance of recurrence -- but it came back. Grade 3 with comedonecrosis was nothing to fart around with.



It IS about saving money, IMO. And it is a cold, hard truth that a few hundred dead women are cheaper than tens of thousands of mammos and a few thousand possible false positives who get treated and take up money from the system. But until you can predict the course of individual disease, you really must treat it all as if it would progess. I have not a scintilla of doubt that mine would have progressed rapidly and killed me. My sister's did when she decided not to have a lump looked at for several years. I'm unwilling to condemn some other woman to die in the name of not overtreating some other women.



L

"To me, every woman's life is worth fighting for -and until we can know with certainty which cancers are going to progress and which are not, we need to treat them all."

what alexandria said...

wish we'd hear from athena...

I so agree that we all should have every opportunity to SURVIVE! Those who don't want to be screened or have the pre-cancer/cancer removed can choose to forgo those things. Everybody else needs to have the option of doing what it takes to stay alive.

How do we even know if these treatments we currently get do any good?  I have a friend who is 11 years out with triple positive, ooddles of positive nodes, but have seen others at Stage 1 and 1cm tumors have a recurrence and are at Stage IV.  What do we always say - "it's a crap shoot."  How do they really know chemotherapy even works?  It certainly doesn't always.  Sure, it can shrink tumors, but shrinking is not obliterating.  They can't even guarantee if you are ER+ that hormonals will always work.  I've lost confidence and realize it is more about cell biology and the cell environment peculiar to the individual.  And those two areas of study are in their infancy.

I say throw research money at prevention (vaccines, lifestyle, etc.)  and Stage IV, for those of us unlucky enough to have not had the benefit of the former.  In the meantime, we can think we're doing some good by discovering our cancers early and treating them, maybe.

I was sure, 45 years ago, when my mother died of cancer, I would live to see a cure by this time.  I don't sense we are much closer BUT I will say this.  My friend's daughter is in biochemistry at UC Davis,  and she (who also had BC), based on her daughter's discussions with professors, think we are very close to "the cure."  I wish I knew more than that.

Blue, oh my goodness! Philip is so adorable. I just want to nuzzle those cheeks.

Kam, there is a lot of good research coming out on blood cancers which appears to be tying in to solid tumors too. Truly amazing stuff that seems to be moving quickly. What I am seeing in my RSS feed is giving me lots of hope.

E, I hope you're recovering nicely from the hammering - still can't fathom what that would be like.

Athena, I hope you're able to have the surgery and that you soon have a plan with which you're comfortable. I know that there are lots of treatments you don't want to do, but I'm hoping that there are things that could be helpful that you're willing to try.

Interesting article showing up at "that" thread comparing President Obama to Adolph Hitler, David Koresh et al - honestly, when does the hating stop - I am heartily sick of these people - I especially hate it when they post on this thread pretending to care....

This applies in many situations we can think of ....

All lives do matter....very much.  Not caring is what holds us back and solidifies a lot of prejudice which further causes resolvable issues to stay in the way.  The lies have to go ( that will take awhile ) but I do think it possible.  We have made a lot of strides before, and during the last election. 

Jackie

Yes, Jackie, we did make great strides in the last two elections. And whenever we get disgusted or frustrated by the haters, we need to step back and remember that they are IN THE MINORITY. President Obama won by an absolute majority BOTH times, with more than 50% of the vote. He is the first president of EITHER party to win twice with more than 50% of the vote since Eisenhower, and the first Democrat to do so since Roosevelt. Just think of what that means -- our first black president was elected TWICE with an absolute majority. That should give us hope for the future, regardless of the hatred we see.



L