Mamography Versus Thermography

I'm sure by now, most of you (if you've been on the internet long enough) have received the tongue-in-cheek essay on preparing for a Mammogram (something about slamming your breast in a drawer repeatedly). If you've been paying attention at this site (have perused our content a bit), you might wonder why we are not sold on yearly mammograms as cancer prevention. Our main concern is that they cause cancer. A mammogram emits much more radiation than a chest x-ray. Having one's breasts zapped yearly doesn't seem to fit the preventative model, at least to us. For a great article on Mammography Madness go to: http://www.westonaprice.org/women/mammography.html

Yes, yes, yes. I hear it all the time too: "My mammogram saved my life!" However, statistically, breast cancer mortality is the same for those who have had mammograms as those who have not had them.

They do not, and the number of false positives and false negatives seem to really mess up women's lives. Mammography can find only advanced tumors.

They can cause cancer. They can help existing tumors to spread. William Campbell Douglass, M.D., has said: "I find it maddeningly contradictory that medical students are taught to examine breasts gently to keep any possible cancer from spreading, yet radiologists are allowed to manhandle them for a mammogram."

Far from it. There are safer methods and more dependable methods. The NCI estimates that the risk of a false positive is about 40% which leads to unnecessary biopsies, mastectomies, lumpectomies, and radiation (which can damage your cardiovascular health).

Screening mammography poses significant and cumulative risks of radiation, particularly for premenopausal women, of which women remain uninformed. The routine practice of taking four films of each breast annually results in approximately 1 rad (radiation absorbed dose) exposure.

This is about 1,000 times greater than exposure from a chest x-ray which is broadly focused on the entire chest rather than narrowly on the breast. The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation, each 1 rad exposure increasing breast cancer risk by about 1 percent, with a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast over a decade's screening.

Radiation risks are further increased, by some four-fold, for the 1 to 2 percent of women who are unknowing silent carriers of the A-T (ataxia-telangiectasia) gene. By some estimates, this accounts for up to 20 percent of all breast cancers diagnosed annually. All these risks are greater for women in their thirties who are being encouraged to undergo "baseline screening," for which there is no evidence of any future relevance.

1. Breast Self- Examination or BSE. Get instructions on how to do this, three times a week in the shower, along with a yearly exam by a physician. A recent Canadian Study University of Toronto) using 40,000 women showed that BSE and a yearly exam were just as effective as Mammograms.

2. Thermography. A thermograph is a picture of the heat (and cold) levels in your body. Since cancer has a very high metabolism, it is slightly hotter than the normal tissues surrounding it and can be detected by a competent thermograph wiz. Thermography, so it is said, can detect a tumor before a mammogram

But there is a next step too: MONITORING the growth or reduction of the tumor. Thermography is perfect for this. Whether the patient decides to go with conventional therapies or alternative therapies, monitoring one's progress is important, and thermography is absolutely perfect for this part of the healing process, as it is not invasive, nor are there the harmful x-rays, and it isn't as painful as slamming your breast in a drawer.

For more information on Thermography, we suggest the following link: www.meditherm.com

One final note...if you find a lump, your doctor will recommend a biopsy. For the truth about biopsies, go here: http://www.karlloren.com/biopsy/

3. AMAS (anti-malignan antibody in serum test). Some people swear by this test, others swear at it. However, statistically speaking, an AMAS test can be up to 95% accurate on the first reading, and up to 99% accurate after the second reading. Since this test only finds cancer cells in your body, a follow-up exam will be needed to locate the cancer. You can read about this test at: www.amascancertest.com.

4. NMP66. This was sent to me by a reader. They'd been to an MIT web site and sent it along, saying, "WOW, can you believe these results!" And yes, the results were incredible, though the test size was small. It seems that NMPs (Nuclear Matrix Proteins) help form the nuclei (the cell's control center) of healthy cells. It is theorized that abnormal amounts of NMPs in the blood is a sign that cancer is present in the body. Furthermore, there is a breast-specific NMP called NMP66. The test was simple: 78 women were sent in for testing, all of them had been tested and screened for cancer already. The test found the cancer in all of the ones already diagnosed (except for just one) and found nothing in the cancer free women. Yes, it is a small study, but it is still very promising.

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