Danielle Teng

Mrs. Merino-Ott

Pre AP English 9

02 May 2014

The Advanced Technology of Mammography

       Truthfully, technology has a major impact on an Americans’ society, whether its best for us or if its just an excuse for us as Americans to be lazy. For example, the topic of mammograms or mammography is a very controversial topic of whether we really need the computer aided detection machine (CAD), or if more advanced technology is actually better for us, and if it is really as accurate as we’re led to believe due to the stereotypical information we learn from our society.  However, the use of these types of machinery for mammography can also be beneficial, to employers, and possibly the patients of mammography.

Mammography is a technique used by doctors and radiologists to locate and diagnose tumors in mainly woman's breast. They are also just used for checkups to make sure that nothing bad has changed or can possibly cause a negative effect on the patient. It is said that women of ages between 50 to their mid 70’s should get a mammogram at least once every two years. And that women of ages lower than 50 years of age, should ask their doctor what they would recommend.        Mammography was created in the late 1960s when it was made specifically for breast imaging. Specifically, the mammogram x-rays the soft tissues of breasts and then records it on an x-ray film or a computer where it can be further observed by  radiologists. The things that these radiologists would be looking for are things that are abnormal and couldn’t be felt in the physical part of the exam. They have advanced the mammograms so that way the breast tissue is less exposed to the radiation that the x-ray machine would give off.

       Mammograms were debated for a long time on  whether having mammograms or the use of mammograms was needed. Based on Joshua J. Fenton, quoted on a mammography web source by Daniel Callahan, “ Women should understand that CAD is… being used to interpret their mammogram and that it’s probably not helping detect breast cancer earlier.” This proves to show that coming from Joshua J. Fenton, an M.D and professor of family and community medicine patients should not expect as much just because it’s a machine. As people grow up in a society they learn and see how technology is making a difference, but are blind sighted to the fact that technology isn’t always better. It is also stated in CNN’s web source and “Women’s Health,” website that having two radiologist or a doctor instead of the CAD to interpret the mammograms, they have a better detection rate to detect breast cancer in its early stages, than the machinery would. This confirms the fact that technology isn’t always needed in every area of expertise. And having people who specialize in these topics to do the manual work instead of machines would be more meticulous.

       Another equally debated topic on mammography is on the assumption that perfect is always better when working with technology. As was previously said, Americans grow up in a society where technology is praised, meaning, if they had a choice between a person manually doing a job or a type of machinery doing that same job, they’d pick the machine. They wouldn’t know exactly why they chose it but its like an instinct because of what they grew up with. In the CNN’s article, titled “Mammograms,” it is declared that a piece of machinery was made called the Computer Aided Detection or CAD for short. They also stated that this piece of technology was so advanced that it picked up the slightest of imperfections. Because it picks up these blemishes, is it likely that it’d give us, the imperfect people that we are, the wrong results? The answer is yes. Due to Americans trusting technology as much as they do, they have taken these tiny deficiencies that the CAD has highlighted and diagnosed their patients as having cancer. While in actuality, they don’t and that small imperfection was nothing to worry about. Thus, with that said, perfect is not always better, considering that we are all imperfect we shouldn’t be examined by a piece of machinery searching for an end result of perfection.

       Due to the CAD’s search for perfection and finding blemishes on the way, it has caused doctors to diagnose people with cancer that don’t have cancer. This is called a false-positive. According to Komen’s website and article on mammography, “authors also found CAD led to an increase in false positive results. Thus, the benefit of CAD needs more study.” The authors being the radiologists that they are and the fact that they have to point out that they have noticed more changes that aren’t for the better shows that the CAD has not decreased the amount of false-positives as they hoped it would have. Instead it increased the chances of false-positives and diagnosing patients that have nothing wrong with them. According to CNN’s article, the percentage of women diagnosed correctly, “decreased from 4.3% to 3.6%.” They also mentioned that the percentage of callbacks for the false-positives increased once the CAD was introduced. And again there is enough proof that it hasn’t helped and has caused more false-positives than they meant when they created the CAD.

       Of course, there are many reasons why Americans would think that the CAD for mammography is benefiting us. Such as, the producers of the Computer Aided Machine had their mind set that they were helping our medical department in advancing our knowledge and also benefiting from the profit they obtained from customers wanting to try out the new, “hot,” medical item. Or maybe, it was benefiting the doctors and radiologists, because it left less work for them to manually do, they could just let the machine handle it and they’d still get paid. But, would that be the right thing to do, to take care of an American society and possible save lives manually than giving the responsibility to an emotionless object? Even the patients, as was said previously, Americans grew up in a society where technology is exalted so in an Americans’ mind , “Technology = Better.” Because of other, more successful types of machinery it sets in their minds that new is always better. Which are some reasons that people would believe CAD is better for us rather than being bad for us, or making things worse than the situation actually is.

       To conclude, there are many reasons for people to think that CAD is good for us but their are also many reasons why it’s bad for a society. These types of technology is what causes Americans to become more careless to other peoples’ lives and wellbeing. They feel like they are benefiting others and themselves due to the fact that they get paid , they feel like they’ve, “done their job,” and diagnosed someone that had something wrong with them. While in reality, they activated a machine that did the work, yes, they got paid, but the person might’ve been diagnosed incorrectly and was going through the stress and pain, that the people who were properly diagnosed were going through. Accordingly, there are stereotypes in an American society that still have to be overseen instead of pushed to the side to just believe and go along with.