THERE WERE two pieces of bad news about breast cancer last week — one general and one particular.
The general news was alarming. The percentage of American women getting mammograms is dropping — down almost 4 percent from 200 to 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The reasons for the drop are not clear, but researchers speculate that a shortage of mammography screening sites and a widespread lack of health insurance may be contributing factors.
The other news was just saddening. Molly Ivins, the Texas newspaper columnist whose acid takes on Texas and U.S. politics can eat though solid steel, has been hospitalized with her third recurrence of breast cancer. The news reports of her condition are not encouraging.
Ivins has been fighting the disease since 1999, when she was diagnosed with Stage III inflammatory breast cancer. That is a late stage of a particularly aggressive form of the disease.
In spite of the best medical care, Ivins’ cancer seems to be winning.
What makes the decline in mammogram rates so disturbing and Ivins’ latest recurrence so sad is that both reports come on the heels of a report that the number of cancer deaths is declining in the United States. The decline in the death rate is attributed to improvements in the early detection and treatment of many kinds of cancer.
So, even as hope for survival grows for people diagnosed with cancer, more American women are not taking — or are not able to take — the first step into the process that could save their lives. Mammography is the best way to detect breast cancer in its early stages.
With fewer mammograms, the death rate from breast cancer is likely to rise again, and more women will have to endure the ordeal that Molly Ivins has been living with for years.