Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie’s decision to undergo prophylactic double mastectomy has caused waves all around, but it might not have been necessary in the first place, an eminent medical researcher has said.
“False alarms can prompt people to do something not required. What is needed is selective screening,” Prof Subrat Kumar Acharya, Head of Department of Gastroenterology at the AIIMS, New Delhi, said here last week.
Quoting an article in a leading medical journal, Prof Acharya, one of eminent medical researchers in the country, said screening of 25,000 women over a ten-year period for breast cancer had led to the detection of only one cancer patient.
Thousands of women with a family history of breast cancer are often scared and undergo biopsy which is not needed, he said while addressing the annual function of the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital (IMS&SH), the faculty of medicine of the SOA University.
Following Jolie’s disclosure of her decision to remove her breasts in a recent article, oncologists have been flooded with queries from women who have a family history of breast and ovarian cancers.
Prof Acharya, who was conferred with the honorary causa (doctorate) by the university on the occasion, said the art of how to selectively screen people for an ailment is important.
Addressing the medical students, he said they need to have the passion for medical science which would trigger the rigour for the profession. “Everyday you have a problem, a question to crack, you need inquisitiveness,” he added.
The function was also graced by Prof Sead Audic, Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina in India, and Padma Bhushan Dr Sitakanta Mohapatra, eminent poet and litterateur. Prof RP Mohanty, Vice-Chancellor of SOA University, presided over the function.
Prof Audic said, “India has a large population of which the majority is youth. The country has a bright future.”