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| http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7181596.stm
Fee |
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| Why not use breast directly? Why to use saliva for breast cancer and breasts for dental cancer? And, something else for something else? |
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| I agree with Neel. I think it's very important that all breasts be very closely inspected. Luckily my gf allows me to do this on a regular basis....  |
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| Breast scanning's actually quite a painful process as they sandwich your boob between two plates on the scanning machine. It also doesn't always pick up lumps at the back of the breast, near the muscle tissue due to the plate edges not being able to get close enough and the resolution on the resulting scan's not wonderful to the similar densities between normal and cancerous breast tissue. It also does not differentiate between cancerous and benign growths or cysts so anyone with a dodgy looking scan has to wait for further tests before knowing if it's cancer or not.
A lot of this new technique is to do with ease of use, cost, and early detection. It would be quick and hassle free to get a person to spit into a cup. One sample can be used to test for multiple cancerous conditions. The patient doesn't have to wait for an appointment for a scan or other test initially. It will pick up cancer markers for those cancers we do not currently have a regular checking process for. Some cancers only create symptoms in their terminal stage so having a means of testing at the same time as a person is having a routine health check would mean more cancers getting diagnosed early enough to do something about them without carrying the cost of having to persuade everyone to come in every x time for some other form of routine test.
Why dentists? .... Dentists check visually for oral cancers and benign growths at the same time as looking for cavities and gum disease and also get you to spit a lot anyway. Keeping some of the saliva for testing would, therefore, mean little extra overhead in getting people to an apointment, collecting the sample, and sending it off to a test centre. There's also the argument that it would reduce the need for advertising to persuade people to use the new screening process as they're already in the habit of going to the dentist anyway.
Cheaper cost will be more folk can be done. In the UK, breast scannings only being done on a routine basis for the over 50s. Cervical screening also has a start age limit and there's currently a debate over whether this should be lowered.
And these are just the reasons I can think off off the top of my head :-)
Fee
Edited by Orbilia 2008-01-11 9:28 AM
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| Gah, the site glitched my editing on the above so please ignore my last post and read this one instead :
This research aims to find a new technique that is easy to use, cheap, and that enables early detection of a range of cancers.
Breast scanning's actually quite a painful process as they sandwich your boob between two plates on the scanning machine. It doesn't always pick up lumps at the back of the breast, near the muscle tissue due to the plate edges not being able to get close enough. The resolution on the resulting scan's not wonderful to the similar densities between normal and cancerous breast tissue. It does not differentiate between cancerous and benign growths or cysts so anyone with a dodgy looking scan has to wait for further tests before knowing if it's cancer or not.
Cervical smears and breast scans require highly skilled staff to read them manaually for a result. This occassionally results in incorrect diagnosis. A test with a simple yes/no type answer would reduce these errors and with them, the stress on the patient and the risk that someone with cancer would go undiagnosed until it was too late to treat. Humans would still be needed for pinpointing the precise location and type of cancer and for confirming the result. Potentially, this could reduce surgery waiting times as it could reduce the time taken to get a biopsy result. That is, the resource would be freed from routine checking and re-directed toward treatment of those known to have cancer.
Why dentists? .... Dentists check visually for oral cancers and benign growths at the same time as looking for cavities and gum disease and also get you to spit a lot anyway. Keeping some of the saliva for testing would, therefore, mean little extra overhead in getting people to an apointment, collecting the sample, and sending it off to a test centre. There's also the argument that it would reduce the need for advertising to persuade people to use the new screening process as they're already in the habit of going to the dentist regularly anyway.
Cheaper cost will be more folk can be done. In the UK, breast scannings only being done on a routine basis for the over 50s. Cervical screening also has a start age limit and there's currently a debate over whether this should be lowered.
And these are just the reasons I can think off off the top of my head :-)
Fee |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| I noticed how the doctors were pretty sure that dentists were not capable of handling this test. They are so territorial! On the one hand they scream (in Canada and the UK, at least) about how overworked and underpaid they are but on the other hand, they sure don't want anyone else thinking they could possibly do one teeny, tiny segment of their jobs for them... 
Yes, mammograms are not pleasant. If they screened for prostate cancer in any manner like a mammogram  , you can bet that a) 0% of men would be tested and b) they would be inventing a less invasive test right quickly! And mammograms are vastly expensive. If there was a cheap and easy first level of screening, we wouldn't need so many pink ribbon campaigns to buy new machines all the time. |
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| I should also have mentioned that whilst breast cancer incidence is lower in men, it does still happen, however the design of mamogram machines also makes them unsuitable for testing (most  ) men.
Fee
Edited by Orbilia 2008-01-14 5:28 AM
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| *LOL* I'd certainly volunteer to help with the testing though (yep, slightly annoyed with the men in my life right now :-) ).
Fee
tourist - 2008-01-11 3:12 PM
I noticed how the doctors were pretty sure that dentists were not capable of handling this test. Yes, mammograms are not pleasant. If they screened for prostate cancer in any manner like a mammogram , you can bet that a) 0% of men would be tested and b) they would be inventing a less invasive test right quickly! |
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