subject: Most Women Overestimated the Risk of Breast Cancer [print this page] Most Women Overestimated the Risk of Breast Cancer
Most Women Overestimated the Risk of Breast Cancer
Nearly 9 out of 10 women overestimate how likely they are to develop breast cancer in their lifetime, according to new study findings.
Previous research has shown that women who speak to a counselor about their risk of breast cancer tend to become less motivated to schedule regular mammograms, which perhaps because they learn the actual risk of breast cancer, and risk that this information makes them lackadaisical
about screening.
"A woman's risk of breast cancer is not as high as you think it is, but that doesn't mean the risk does not exist. We definitely need to have our screening every year, "the doctor advised. In order to do the research, the doctor and her team asked 170 women to estimate the average risk of breast cancer,then she told all the women that the actual risk was 13 percent. There were only 7 percentage women who asked to estimate their risk came close to the actual number. On the other hand,among the women who not asked to estimate their risk,40 percent said they thought 13 percent was close to "what they expected".
The doctor said that people seemed like not "carry a number in their head of their risk of breast cancer."Women asked to find out that their risk are likely influenced by the fact that people often talk about breast cancer.
In contrast, if women are told that the percentage is 13 outright, which sounds great, everything makes sense after you have heard about it. Besides the doctor said that 13 percent is just an average and each woman might have a higher or lower risk depending on their family history and other factors. A woman's individual risk is something only her doctor can determine.
Women whose breast is single or who have small tumor are low to moderate risk of developing a further breast cancer can gain no survival benefit from a mastectomy or a contra lateral prophylactic mastectomy (removal of the other, unaffected breast). "Yet these procedures are increasingly being accepted as patient choice and offered by clinicians who do not have the possibility of an inaccurate perception of risk because the reason behind their patient's request," said Mr Sehu. "The rate of contra lateral prophylactic mastectomy has almost doubled in recent years without any evidence of survival benefit and the reasons for this need to be addressed and alternative strategies considered."
The doctor said that she and her team have found similar findings in men about their risk of prostate cancer.
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
