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FacebookWSU researcher works to dispel cancer myths
Education is the key, says Wright State’s Barbara Fowler.
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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This article is part of our month-long focus on breast cancer. To learn more or find ways to help, go to our Pink Edition Page
BEAVERCREEK — Wright State University researcher Barbara Fowler admits she was concerned when she read the recent New York Times article announcing the American Cancer Society had determined the benefits of many cancer screenings, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated.
“I’m hoping this doesn’t raise the panic bar too high for people,” says Fowler. Leaking partial information prematurely, Fowler said, will only confuse.
As for whether some smaller cancers may be overtreated, Fowler said it’s long been known that some providers do start “pretty aggressive treatments including chemotherapy and radiation on some prostate and breast cancers that could have waited.”
“The decision is best left up to a multidisciplinary team,” she believes.
On the same day the front page article appeared in The New York Times, the American Cancer Society issued a statement reaffirming its recommendations on mammograms.
“The American Cancer Society had to retort,” Fowler says. “Here was a fear factor they had to undo.”
In the meantime, Fowler’s advice to women is to continue following the current recommendations and consult with their own health care providers if they have questions or concerns.
“What they’re saying is that the mammograms will not detect all cancers,” she says. “The truth of the matter is that we’ve known mammograms are going to miss some women. You also have to remember that a screening is not meant to diagnose, it’s only meant to separate those who fall in a certain category. If a person has a glucose or cholesterol screening, those aren’t meant to be diagnostic, they’re only showing your levels. You have to follow up with a health care provider who can make a more definitive assessment.”
Fowler, a professor of nursing with extensive experience in mammography screening and women’s health issues, has devoted her career to clarifying myths and false information about breast cancer issues, especially as they relate to black and Hispanic women.
She says many women fear getting exams because of what might be found.
“Many women incorrectly believe a diagnosis of cancer means death,” she says. “In fact, early detection of breast cancer, which a mammogram can provide, involves successful treatment in about 85 percent of the cases.”
Fowler used her dissertation as an opportunity to study the reasons minority women often choose not to get screened.
“I was raised in a poor black community in Cincinnati,” she said, “and I was one of those who grew up hearing that cancer was a death sentence.”
As a girl, she lived across the street from a small Catholic hospital.
“I liked the idea that nurses in the white uniforms were doing things for patients, I thought they were making them feel better,” she said.
Fowler, who got her doctorate from Rush University in Chicago, was selected in a nationwide competition in 1999 for a $150,000 Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation population-based grant to locate hard-to-reach and uninsured or under insured black women in the Dayton area. The goal was to link them with available free or no-cost mammography screenings.
Fowler said the study was important because although the incidence of breast cancer is lower in black women, the death rate is higher because many fail to get regular check-ups.
Her research told her that women sometimes believe the X-ray screening device will cause cancer.
“The radiation levels used in a mammogram are very low,” she said. ”People receive more radiation in a chest X-ray.”
Fowler says education is the key. She’s all in favor of organizations such as Sister to Sister, and My Sister’s Keeper.
“We need to educate people and be sensitive to their fears and concerns,” she said. “When people have an opportunity to tell you their fears, then you can give them accurate information. They’ll change their behavior once they hear what you have to say — that inaccurate information can kill them.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or MMoss@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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3:01 PM, 10/29/2009