I don't see how you can get an assumption out of that. She's stating the result of a calculation. She's saying that if the difference between the US and Europe is 11 percent, then the decrease in US survival rate would be 11 percent. It's like saying that if bread costs two bucks, then two loaves cost four bucks. That's no assumption.
"The five-year breast cancer survival in the U.S. is 90.1%. The five-year survival for breast cancer in Europe is 79%. American women must ask themselves one question: Is cutting the budget for screening mammograms in half worth this 11.1% drop in breast cancer survival?"
I think my WAG is as good as your "back-of-the-envelope estimate". Neither of us have good data to use in calculations.
LOL. At least I didn't just pick a number out of the air.
More a negative reaction to over the top criticism of her.
Thanks for the confirmation of my assumption. <g>
Only the knowledge that early detection is very important and shouldn't be considered trivial, and I'd call a guesstimate of 1% trivial.
So, you pick a number that sounds sufficiently important rather than a number that is valid. That's a new one. I guess if you didn't think it was important to own a piano, the price would be ten bucks and if it was important, then the price would be thousands. Fascinating.
You can't perform a nationwide study to write a simple article.
You don't need to do a study. The data are out there. You just have to pick relevant data to use in your computation.
"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."
Well, 95 and 56 are nice numbers just as 11 is a nice number. Maybe cutting back on mammograms for forty-somethings will reduce the survival rate by 95 percent or 56 percent rather than the author's 11 percent...LOL.
Seriously, that's interesting information but it doesn't inform the question of how much the US survival rate would be reduced by the cutbacks. It's just as irrelevant as the European data.
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
Except that it's not true. We have the data for the number of women who are cured. You don't need to guesstimate or assume. We know the answer to that.
"In the Breast Care Center last year, Roux said, a quarter of the diagnosed breast cancer cases were in women in their early 40s." Not 15%.
Brumar, my numbers come from the National Cancer Institute. They are the official data for the entire country. The numbers you quoted are from some woman's local clinic. Sheesh!
And you call me stubborn... <g>
That's it. I'm done. |
