Cancer Is Caused by Tests Intended to Diagnose It

(Second of a Series on Cancer Treatment)

by Heidi Stevenson

Not only is it questionable whether early detection genuinely extends lives, strong evidence is emerging that the tests themselves are harmful and even cause cancer. Issues concern the nature of the tests themselves. Radiation increases cancer risk, so any test using it inevitably must result in an increase in cancer. Positive test results are often followed by invasive procedures that themselves are simply more testing, such as biopsies. These risks are generally minor, but there is also concern that they may actually cause cancer to metastasize. Beyond all that, there is the added matter that aggressive testing results in aggressive treatments that may do more harm than good.

Mammograms: Perhaps the Most Egregious Example of Unnecessary Cancer Testing

Direct Risks from the Test Itself

Most women complain mightily of mammogram pain from compression of their breasts between metal plates. Aside from the fact that pain is a signal that something is wrong, it has been known by doctors for more than three quarters of a century that cancerous breasts should be handled carefully to avoid the risk of spreading cancerous cells⁽¹⁾.

Women are routinely assured that the amount of radiation exposure from mammograms is too small for concern. The reality, though, is quite different. The first point to note is that, though the amount of radiation is low, it is all concentrated on a single breast. Risk calculations for equivalent amounts of radiation reference whole body exposure to the same amount. The amount of radiation quoted is generally for one film of one breast—yet the reality is that several films of each breast are taken during each mammogram, resulting in exposures often ten times greater than for a single film. Over ten years, mammogram exposure increases cancer risk by ten times—hardly an insignificant amount.

Premenopausal breast tissue, which contains high levels of estrogen, is far more sensitive to radiation than other parts of the body, thus increasing the risk of cancer.

Adding insult to injury, women who are most pressured into having early and frequent mammograms, those with the BRCA "breast cancer gene," have as much as four times more risk of cancer from radiation exposure. According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, of 10,000 women with the BRCA gene who had five mammograms between ages 24 and 29, there were an additional 26 cases of breast cancer⁽²⁾.

In the abstract of a recent study reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine⁽³⁾, the opening statement reads, "The introduction of screening mammography has been associated with sustained increases in breast cancer incidence." The study documented a 22% increase in breast cancer diagnoses in women who'd had mammograms every two years over a six-year period, as opposed to those who had only one at the end of that time. The study's conclusion was that it must have been because more cases were found, but it leaves unquestioned whether the increased number of cases found might have also been associated with the mammograms themselves. Whichever is the case, neither speaks well of mammograms. As documented here, it's likely that some of those diagnosed with cancer were victims of the radiation from their mammograms. As is discussed next, more aggressive diagnosis leads to aggressive and dangerous treatments.

Risks from Aggressive Treatment Resulting from Earlier Diagnoses

More difficult to quantify is the harm done by aggressive treatments for cancers that are discovered by mammograms. Most obvious, of course, is the increased risk from surgery, which is never benign. What is sure, though, is that many cancers that would have disappeared without treatment or would never have caused harm become subject to aggressive, dangerous, and miserable treatments of biopsies, surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy—at great risk and significant reduction of life quality. See Cancer—Does Early Detection Really Mean Longer Life?

What Is the Reason for Statistics Showing Increased Survival of Breast Cancer?

This is a most intriguing question, with a surprising answer. Since mammograms became common in the early to mid 1980's, a large number of cancerous and precancerous tumors, which had been undetectable before, started to be diagnosed. Called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), they are limited to milk ducts and have not invaded surrounding tissues. Research has shown that these tumors often do not become invasive cancer, and when they do, tend to be very slow growing. In other words, they are often harmless. However, when found by mammography, they are treated as if they were aggressive and invasive cancer. They are removed by surgery, sometimes total mastectomies, and treated with radiation or chemotherapy.

These tumors, most of which would never have been noticed, many of which would probably never have caused any problems, have been added to the statistics of cancer incidence. Although women with them are placed at risk from aggressive treatments, often suffering and sometimes dying, the overall statistics show that their "cancer" has been stopped—even though it probably wouldn't ever have progressed to a state that would have been noticed, let alone become lethal. As stated by Dr. Craig Henderson, a medical oncologist at the University of California-San Francisco, "...we define cancer, as we've done for 50 years, by how it looks under the microscope—not by how it behaves. A good percentage of the things pathologists call malignant will never kill you."⁽⁴⁾

Other Types of Cancer Testing

Mammography was discussed in some depth because it's such a common procedure that is pressed on women, as if not having it done is akin to playing Russian roulette. Other kinds of cancer testing have the same sorts of problems.

Standard testing for prostate cancer in men consists of a simple blood test. The test itself is fairly harmless. Concerns associated with testing have to do with the medical response to positive results. Biopsies are invasive, and if there is cancer, there is the question of whether it may be spread by the process. Needle tract seeding is spreading of cancer cells through the puncture of a needle used for biopsies. The reality has been documented⁽⁵⁾, though the frequency does not appear to have been seriously studied.

Other studies document other cancer biopsy risks⁽⁶⁾, including a study showing that inflammation caused by biopsies may incur metastasis, one indicating that cancer cells may be spread via the blood stream, and yet another documenting a 50% greater risk of cancer spreading from the breast to lymph nodes as a result of biopsies.

Another risk associated with early diagnosis of prostate cancer is harm that can come from the standard treatment, hormone therapy. A form of estrogen is used to counter testosterone in the belief that less testosterone slows or stops prostate cancer progression. This can result in harm to mental function⁽⁷⁾. In general, tinkering with the hormone balance is a risky proposition, often resulting in untoward effects. To add insult to injury, it is now coming out that hormone therapy does no good at all in older men⁽⁸⁾.

To Have Cancer Tests or Not to Have Cancer Test?

It isn't the purpose of this article to tell you not to have tests for cancer. The point is that you should understand that there are risks associated with such tests, that you will probably not be informed of them, and your physician likely isn't fully aware of just how risky such procedures can be. Routine testing is probably not a good idea in general, as is becoming apparent with mammograms. Ultimately, whether to have such tests is up to you, the person who must live with the results, whatever they may be.

References: