Tag: breast cancer
Precision Medicine and Uncertainty
Precision medicine is a development that promises to tailor treatments to the individual patient based on genetic and other molecular and cellular analyses. In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative. A website for Precision Medicine claims to offer “perfect care for every individual.” Much of what we read about precision medicine gives the impression...
Mammography and overdiagnosis, revisited
Another new study supports the hypothesis that overdiagnosis is a major problem in mammography screening programs. Predictably, it is attacked based on a misunderstanding of what overdiagnosis is.
When science- and evidence-based guidelines conflict with patient wishes: What’s a doc to do?
We use the term "science-based medicine" (SBM) because medicine isn't a science. The best medicine, however, is based in science. Patient values are also important, but what is a science-based doctor to do when SBM conflicts with what a patient or family wants?
Diet and exercise versus cancer: A science-based view
Yes, diet and exercise can be useful to prevent some cancers. Unfortunately, they don't prevent all cancers, and the effect size is more modest than often represented. That's not to say that eating right and exercise aren't good. They are, for so many other reasons than cancer. Just don't view them as a panacea for preventing cancer.
Therapeutic Touch Pseudoscience: The Tooth Fairy Strikes Again
A study out of Iran titled “Therapeutic touch for nausea in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy: Composing a treatment” was recently published in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice. It is a great example of the Tooth Fairy science that permeates much of the research in complementary and alternative medicine. In Tooth Fairy science, researchers attempt to study a phenomenon without...
CAM use and chemotherapy: A negative correlation
"Complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) is represented as safe because it is administered alongside conventional medicine, despite the fact that for the vast majority of CAM modalities there is little or no evidence for efficacy. However, as a new study shows, cancer patients who use CAM tend to be more likely to refuse conventional cancer treatment.
Reclassifying thyroid cancer and the willful misunderstanding of overdiagnosis
If there’s one lesson that we here at Science-Based Medicine like to emphasize, it’s that practicing medicine and surgery is complicated. Part of the reason that it’s complicated is that for many diseases our understanding is incomplete, meaning that physicians have to apply existing science to their treatment as well as they can. The biology of cancer, in particular, can be vexing....
Behold my power, quacks, and despair! Mike Adams publishes several defamatory articles about yours truly…
Internet crank, quack, and conspiracy theorist Mike Adams has launched a campaign of character assassination against yours truly. I didn't know I had so much power.
Acupuncture does not work for menopause: A tale of two acupuncture studies
Arguably, one of the most popular forms of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) being “integrated” with real medicine by those who label their specialty “integrative medicine” is acupuncture. It’s particularly popular in academic medical centers as a subject of what I like to refer to as “quackademic medicine“; that is, the study of pseudoscience and quackery as though it were real...
You’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. How soon do you need treatment?
Timely surgery for breast cancer is obviously better than delaying surgery, but how long can a patient safely wait for surgery once diagnosed. Because a randomized controlled clinical trial to answer this question would be unethical, this has been a difficult question to answer. Fortunately, a new study provides an estimate of how much of a delay it takes before outcomes start...