I didn't publish an article claiming some scientifically based percent change. I posted a response on SI ...
Ah.
The key word is "assumed." Why do you use that word?
She didn't proffer a mere assumption. She asserted a valid, data-based conclusion.
I don't recall thinking that from reading the article. I recognized (maybe I should say assumed) she was making an assumption.
I, OTOH, offered a back-of-the-envelope estimate.
You, OTOH, offered either a WAG
I think my WAG is as good as your "back-of-the-envelope estimate". Neither of us have good data to use in calculations.
simply your confirming support for your home-girl.
More a negative reaction to over the top criticism of her.
I'd expect an accurate % if it were attainable would be at least half of 11%. Maybe higher.
What basis do you have for that? Do you have any basis at all?
Only the knowledge that early detection is very important and shouldn't be considered trivial, and I'd call a guesstimate of 1% trivial.
If you were publishing an article on this subject and you wanted to include a figure for how much the US survival rate would be reduced if mammogram availability for forty-something women were cut in half, how would you get that number?
You can't perform a nationwide study to write a simple article.
We can find that somewhere around 15% of diagnoses occur in the forties. (We don't know how many of those were found via mammogram.) And that 15.1% of deaths occur between 45 and 55, which would be the age range that determines survival for a 40 something diagnosis. Even allowing that some of those deaths could be women diagnosed younger than forty and just over 50, that's pretty much a wash. Using the author's data/assumption/guess that the available mammograms would be cut in half, you'd have to cut your wash in half. Half of a wash is most likely less than one percent.
Consider the following:
The statistics from a recent study are startling: Women diagnosed with breast cancer by a routine mammogram have a 95 percent chance of surviving.
For women diagnosed later, who haven't received routine mammograms, the chance of dying is 56 percent.
allbusiness.com
It seems that routine regular mammograms reduce the chance of dying of breast cancer from 56% to 5% for women who get breast cancer overall. That confirms my understanding. I see no reason why it wouldn't be true of women in their 40's too. Accordingly, I find it hard to believe the benefits of mammograms in women under 40 is a wash.
If the cancer can be caught before it has spread and before it is large enough to be felt, a woman's chances of survival are much greater.
"If the woman waits to feel a lump in their breast, then 50 percent of the time, that (cancer) has already spread to her body,"
So much for relying on self-exams instead.
In the Breast Care Center last year, Roux said, a quarter of the diagnosed breast cancer cases were in women in their early 40s.
allbusiness.com
Not 15%. Note that 25% of the diagnoses here were not just 40's but early 40'.
I don't see where you get either of the two 15 % numbers. |
