Americans mixed on adequacy of cancer screenings: poll

	Tweet

Many Americans are satisfied with how often they are screened for cancer but some say they are not screened often enough, while a growing body of evidence suggests too much screening for certain types of cancer may do more harm than good, a Gallup poll showed.

According to the poll released on Wednesday, 58 percent of 1,012 adults surveyed thought standard cancer screenings, such as Pap smears, mammograms or blood tests to detect prostate cancer, were performed often enough.

Thirty-one percent said such cancer screenings were not done often enough, and seven percent said they were done too often. More data is available here: http://url.health.am/553/

"Americans for many years have heard the traditional admonition that ‘early detection’ of cancer is always beneficial for the patient, and the results of the current question suggest that this belief still holds in the minds of most,” Gallup pollsters said in their report.

There is a debate over the value of frequent screening, set off by recommendations that widespread cancer screening for breast and prostate cancer be scaled back.

In October, the government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force triggered an uproar among cancer specialists when it issued a draft recommendation that healthy men not get a common blood test for prostate cancer called the PSA test. The task force is collecting public comment on the draft recommendation against the PSA test until December 13.

The same panel caused a media storm in 2009 after it recommended that doctors scale back routine mammograms for women in their 40s and 50s.

Just over half the respondents in the Gallup poll, conducted between November 3 and 6, were men. The maximum margin of sampling error was five percentage points for men and six percentage points for women.

###

(Reuters)

RELATED STORIES:
Glaxo drug slows breast cancer in study   Women with Certain Type of Ovarian Cancer and BRCA Gene Mutation Have Improved Survival at 5 Years   More breast cancer diagnosed in women with diabetes   Validation of a tool for identifying women at high risk for hereditary breast cancer   Johns Hopkins Scientists Crack Genetic Code for Form of Pancreatic Cancer   Yoga improves quality of life in women with breast cancer undergoing radiation therapy   Breast cancer patients prefer silicone over saline implants after mastectomy   ‘Brake gene’ turned off in pancreatic cancer   FDA Approves Test for HER2 Gene in Breast Cancer Tissue   Mammography Study in BMJ Flawed: Discredited Data Used   Exercise boosts breast cancer patients’ well-being   Breast cancer doesn’t have to mean losing your breast   Breast Cancer Patients with Greater Need Seek More Information Online   Risk of breast cancer recurrence may depend on treating surgeon   Angled Gantry Technique Reduced Breast Radiation Exposure by 50%   Overeating plus inactivity ups breast cancer risk   Cosmetic Breast Implants Do Not Interfere With Detecting Breast Cancer   Researchers Identify New Cell Targets for Preventing Growth of Breast and Other Tumors   Time interval from diagnosis to treatment of breast cancer at an NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center   Breast Cancer - How Advantageous Or Detrimental Is Brachytherapy?   Gene helps protect tumor suppressor in breast cancer   New technique images tumor vessel leakiness to predict breast cancer chemotherapy outcome

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]