MRI scans result in unnecessary breast surgeries

Monday, October 25, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: MRI, breast surgery, health news

(NaturalNews) Doctors will sometimes recommend that certain high-risk women undergo magnetic resonance mammography (MRM), a type of breast scan that supposedly works better than standard mammography at detecting hard-to-see cancer cells, in order to better identify and tackle the disease. But a new study paper published in the British Medical Journal says the technique is not only ineffective in women with early stage breast cancer, but that it leads to many unnecessary breast surgeries as well.

According to Malcolm Kell, a consultant surgeon at the Eccles Breast Screening Unit at University Hospital in Dublin, there is "no compelling evidence that [MRM] should be routinely used in newly diagnosed breast cancer." Doing so, he said, can cause more problems than it helps.

According to a report in the U.K. Telegraph, only one study has evaluated the effectiveness of MRM in women with early stage breast cancer. And that study found that MRM did not reduce the number of women who had to return for a second surgery due to the first one inadequately removing all the cancer tissue.

And according to Professor Kefah Mokbel from St. George's Hospital and the London Breast Institute at Princess Grace Hospital, 25 percent of MRMs result in inaccurate results. Women who undergo MRM are also seven times more likely to undergo a mastectomy than women who do not, even though the number of lives saved overall remains the same in either case. This indicates that many women are undergoing needless surgery because of the "false positives" generated by MRMs.

To learn more about the natural ways in which you can help prevent and treat breast cancer, visit:
https://www.naturalnews.com/breast_cancer.htm...

Sources for this story include:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8078123/MR...