Is the media alarming the public by highlighting this exceedingly rare case?
As reported by ABC News, a 10-year old girl was diagnosed with invasive secretory carcinoma. She has a good prognosis, but must undergo a mastectomy and chemotherapy.
Some are worrying that the media attention will alarm mothers and young girls, perhaps pushing them to obtain screening tests such as self-breast exams and mammograms. But the last thing we need to be doing are unnecessary breast biopsies on pre-teen girls.
On the other hand, there are those who want more aggressive education for breast cancer targeted to young girls, which, “lays the foundation for a lifetime of breast health.”
What’s the right thing to do?
While there’s no reason to suppress such a story, taking a measured approach is imperative. It should be stressed that breast cancer in a 10-year old is exceedingly rare, less than one in a million. Which means there should be no reason why the general pre-teen population should be undergoing any type of breast cancer screening.
Related posts:
- Are we finding too much breast cancer?
- "The great majority of women in the United States should not be getting MRI scans for breast cancer screening"
- Does a breast MRI have any benefit for patients with breast cancer?
- Breast cancer screening: Orac’s take
- False positive cancer screening tests doesn’t resonate in Congress
- Will patients accept the new, evidence-based, breast cancer screening guidelines?
- Abortion and breast cancer
{ 5 comments }
While the risk from receiving a mammogram is very small, it’s not zero, especially for a child. A quick estimate from xrayrisk.com gives an added 1 in 10,000 incidence of cancer from a 10 year old girl receiving a mammogram. If the incidence of breast cancer in children is really 1 in a million, there’s no way they should be receiving mammograms.
Screening tests are useful only for common conditions. Rare conditions will have extremely rare yield for screening tests and not useful at all in this scenario. Even something as simple as self breast exam can raise false alarms but probably will be the easiest and cheapest to consider.
I wish the media would be more cautious of what they release due to hysterics the public goes into during these trying times. With that said, if breast cancer runs in the family then the oncologist will suggest at what ages the girls need to start having mammograms and such. Unfortunately, my ex sister-in-law and her sister have had to endure such treatments since they started developing their breasts due to it running in their family. My heart and prayers go out to the 10-year-old girl and her family because it is such a rare event; however, they deserve their privacy during this time of healing.
@kevinmd
i think you meant “UNnecessary breast biopsies on pre-teen girls”
Thanks. Fixed.
Comments on this entry are closed.