Screening Recommendations Based on Doctor Personal Experiences

Recently in JAMA," ...a research letter... explores howsocial interactions with friends, family and colleagues who have been diagnosed with breast cancer may affect a physician ’s recommendations to patients. "What it found was that a doctor ' s personal experiences impact what they recommend for their patients. They did not necessarily follow the current guidelines. " Physicians familiar with someone with a poor prognosis who was not diagnosed via screening were much more likely to recommend routine checks for women between 40 and 44 years old and those over 75. "“Describing a woman whose breast cancer was not diagnosed by screening mammogram and who had a poor prognosis was associated with increased odds of recommending routine screening to patients within the designated younger and older age groups for which guidelines no longer support routine, universa l screening,” Pollack et al. wrote. " In my personal experience, my rheumatologist has been very hesitant to prescribe a biologic, such as Humira or Enbrel, for my rheumatoid arthritis. It is standard not to prescribe them to anyone who has been diagnosed with any cancer in the past five years because there is a TNF (Tumor Necrosing Factor) in them. Although I am more than ten years out from breast cancer and over 30 years out from thyroid cancer that translates to two cancer diagnoses before the age of 50. So she has been very hesitant. She even has conferred with my oncologist on this. Finally she ha...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: arthritis treatment cancer history cancer screening medical history Source Type: blogs