"Many unnecessary controls after breast cancer treatment"



[ad_1]

Women must return unnecessarily for a check-up after breast cancer treatment. Each year, the number of hospital visits can be reduced to about 9,000. That said Annemieke Witteveen, a researcher at the University of Twente in Trouw. According to Witteveen, women are now overworked unnecessarily.

For a thesis on breast cancer, Witteveen analyzed data from about 50,000 women with the disease. She found that women at high risk of contracting cancer received as many controls as the low-risk group

Doctors often did not appreciate the level of risk of return in advance. According to the guidelines, each woman receives a picture of the breast and a physical examination five times a year. After five years, the number of checks will change according to age. The size of the tumor and the mode of treatment are not taken into account, whereas this is necessary according to Witteveen.

Reassurance

Although controls can reassure women, they also have disadvantages, according to Witteveen. For example, the time before hospital visits can be stressful, as many women wonder if the results will be good. "And you have to ask yourself if the final reinsurance outweighs the inconvenience that a new control entails, if the risk is very low," says Witteveen in the journal

"In addition, the controls are damaging to the entire health sector: time and money could also be spent elsewhere. "

[ad_2]
Source link