Breast and Pap Smear Screening

New recommendations for cancer screening have been lambasted in the press and by quotations from local specialists. Buried in the hoopla is the real reason for reommended changes. An article in Journal of American Medical Association in their October, 21, 2009 issue contends that the problem is that we are detecting early cancers that would be successfully treated even if their diagnosis had been delayed, and this is increasing the cost of medical care. My contention is that we should be using thermography for breast screening and developing new protocols for prostrate screening so that we actually prevent the development of cancer, rather than detect cancers already present that have to be treated after the fact.

See October 21 issue of JAMA (click here), P. 1685-1691. For information on thermography click here.