Tag Archives: breast cancer
The USPSTF Recommends Biennial Mammograms for Women Starting at 40
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th May 2023The US Preventive Services Task Force has issued a new draft recommending biennial screening mammography for women ages 40 to 74 years. This recommendation has received widespread notice in the lay press. Workers in the field along with breast cancer advocates want even more (annual) screening. Everybody commenting on this recommendation seems to support it…
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Survival Outcomes After Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th August 2014The practice of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) has increased in woman with unilateral breast cancer. This highly invasive approach to the management of breast cancer has been done without hard evidence that it conveys a survival benefit. Survival Outcomes After Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy: A Decision Analysis by Pamela R. Portschy, Karen M. Kuntz, and Todd M. Tuttle just published in the Journal…
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Mammography Screening in Switzerland
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th May 2014The May 22, 2014 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine has a perspective piece that is even more instructive than its authors and the journal’s editors realized: ‘Abolishing Mammography Screening Programs? A View from the Swiss Medical Board’. It describes the process that the Swiss used to evaluate the scientific foundation for the…
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Head Start as an Heuristic For Medical Students, Treatment of Strokes, and the Law of Unintended Consequences
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th March 2013For more than 25 years I have used the Head Start program to teach medical students data analysis, how to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of treatment regimens, and how belief commonly trumps evidence. This process usually followed the recommendation of a course of treatment by a consultant to a patient who was on a general medicine service…
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Reform School
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th March 2011If you would understand why reform of our medical system is so difficult consider the case of the angiogenesis inhibitor Avastin. The drug had been used in combination with other therapies to treat metastatic breast cancer. “The FDA notified healthcare professionals and patients that it is recommending removing the breast cancer indication for bevacizumab (Avastin)…
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New Data on the Treatment of Breast Cancer
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th February 2011Axillary node dissection has been the standard of care for patients with breast cancer who have early metastatic disease as indicated by a positive axillary lymph node biopsy. In other words, an axillary lymph node is biopsied; if it contains cancer cells the axilla on the affected side is dissected and its lymph nodes are removed. A new…
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