Written by Rahul on 20 February 2009
London, Feb 20 (ANI): Brit experts have cautioned that repeated breast screening tests could lead to unnecessary treatment while women remain ignorant of the risks.
Attacking the Government’s “unethical” leaflets for mammograms, they have said that these pieces of paper “do not come close to telling the truth.”
Twenty-three leading specialists have warned that breast cancer screening can lead to patients being given unnecessary surgery or chemotherapy.
They also claimed that in case cancers detected by the programme were left alone, many “might never appear in a woman’s natural lifespan.”
The warning comes in line with an analysis by the Nordic Cochrane Centre, which found that if 2,000 women were screened for ten years, 10 would be treated unnecessarily.
And a warning letter, signed by public health specialists, epidemiologists, oncologists, GPs and patient representatives, has been sent to the Times newspaper.
The criticism follows the warning by doctors that recent trends to reduce the physical marks caused by breast cancer surgery risk “losing some of the gain in survival” seen in the past decade.
And experts have cautioned that the stress on ensuring that breast surgery does not look unsightly may be at the risk of survival rates.
Monica Morrow, chief of the Breast Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, said that minimally invasive surgery might not be the best for patients.
“Failure to demand a rigorous evaluation of oncological outcomes as well as cosmetic ones runs the risk of losing some of the gains in survival seen in the past decade,” the Telegraph quoted her as writing in the British Medical Journal.
She added: “The local treatment of breast cancer is based on the results of numerous high quality clinical trials and is therefore a model for evidence based care. As we attempt to advance from good to great cosmetic outcomes it is important that we remember this.” (ANI)
Tags: breast cancer, breast cancer screening, breast cancer surgery, breast screening, breast surgery, british medical journal, cancer centre, cosmetic outcomes, london feb, memorial sloan kettering, Monica Morrow, natural lifespan, nordic cochrane centre, patient representatives, public health specialists, rigorous evaluation, sloan kettering cancer, treatment of breast cancer, unnecessary surgery, unnecessary treatment
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Written by Rahul on 28 January 2009
London, Jan 28 (ANI): A new study has claimed that when compared to placebo, the pain relieving effects of acupuncture are limited and seem to lack clinical relevance.
For the study, the researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen examined evidence from thirteen acupuncture pain trials, which involved over 3,000 patients, reports the British Medical Journal.
The trials compared three arms of treatment (real acupuncture, placebo or ‘pretend’ acupuncture or no acupuncture) for a broad range of common conditions such as knee osteoarthritis, migraine, low back pain and post-operative pain.
To minimise bias, the researchers even considered differences in study design and quality before the analysis.
The researchers found a small analgesic effect of real acupuncture compared to placebo acupuncture, which was equivalent to a reduction in pain levels of about 4mm on a 100mm pain scoring scale.
A 10mm reduction on this scale is classed as ‘minimal’ or ‘little change’ so the apparent analgesic effect of acupuncture seems to be below a clinically relevant pain improvement, say the authors.
They found a moderate difference between placebo acupuncture and no acupuncture (10mm on a 100mm pain scoring scale), but the effect of placebo acupuncture varied considerably.
Some large trials reported effects of placebo that were of clear clinical relevance (24mm), whereas other large trials found effects that seemed clinically irrelevant (5mm).
The authors could not explain this variation, but they did not find an association between the type of placebo acupuncture and its effect.
But they said that their findings correspond with several Cochrane reviews on acupuncture for various types of pain, which all concluded that there was no clear evidence of an analgesic effect of acupuncture.
They further added that their findings also question both the traditional foundation of acupuncture and the prevailing theory that acupuncture has important effect on pain in general.
They believe that future research should focus on comparing acupuncture with best existing treatments for different conditions.
The research, titled ‘Acupuncture treatment for pain; Systematic review of randomized clinical trials with acupuncture, placebo acupuncture and no acupuncture groups’ is published on bmj.com. (ANI)
Tags: Acupuncture, analgesic effect, bias, british medical journal, clear evidence, clinical relevance, cochrane reviews, Copenhagen, jan 28, knee osteoarthritis, london jan, low back pain, migraine, nordic cochrane centre, operative pain, osteoarthritis, placebo, variation
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