Question

• Explain the benefits of cancer screening.
• Explain the drawbacks of cancer screening.
• How would you explain to a non-high risk individual their chances of having breast cancer.
• How would you explain to a patient with a positive mammogram, their chances of actually having breast cancer?

Answer 1

●The benefits of breast screening are

• It can enable to identify and treat cancer at the initial stage and prevent it from spreading
• It can reduce unnecessary medical expenditure
• It can reduce the physical and emotional exhaustion by detecting in the earlier stage than getting diagnosed in the later stage
• It can give a sense of relief if not positive
• Planning can be done in advance

●The drawbacks of cancer screening are

• There are possibility for false positive false negative reports
• Misdiagnosis or overdiagnosis can occur
• Needs additional investigations in case of any query with the screening test
• Creates a sense of fear in areas of the test and result

●The chance of having breast cancer for all women irrespective of any non high risk cases is 0.06%.It can be because of lifestyle, age ,food habits, hormonal changes ,menopause, smoking ,poor physical activity, workplace exposure, etc.,Health education can be provided.

●All positive mammogram does not necessarily say there is cancer ,it is not a confirmatory test rather it is a screening test.If positive the women is called for a subsequent visit, examine and assesse whether it is a benign or a cancerous growth. Not all positive result indicates beat cancer .