Understanding MRI-Guided Needle Biopsies: Risks & Patient Rights
QuestionThank you.. but you said "in my opinion not necessary" what is not necessary. Not necessary to ask -- not necessary for them to not go ahead with the biopsy unless I agree to have a foreign body place within.. not necessary for me to be bothered?
It seems that a lot is taken for grated.. I have now declined to have the needle biopsy because the center refused to do the biopsy without leaving the clip behind. This has become such an industry. I am beginning to think that in the future we will all find out that it was indeed the medical industry that created the increase in the amount and incident of breast cancers. With the additional exposures to mammograms, with the placing of metals foreign bodies into the breast. Filling our bodies with poisons when we see the first signs of something we don't understand. Making the breast the enemy instead of the wonderful extension of ourselves that they are. They nurture our children and all of a sudden we have turned them into monsters that we are afraid of and insert time bombs into and send radiation into and poison into. This is all wrong! There is something so wrong with this way we approach our bodies. There needs to be a different way....
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The text above is a follow-up to ...
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Hi Again - I am following up on your much appreciated advice and am scheduled for a MRI guided needle biopsy on Dec. 29. They called today to explain the procedure and I was surprised to hear that they would leave a titanium chip in the place so that any other doc's would be able to go back to that same spot and an ADDITIONAL mamogram will need to be done to show and mark its placement. My concern (in addition to and ADDITIONAL exposure to xrays) is that after doing the research and reading that the chip is quite benign is this. My experience with medicine is that they use the term quite benign often and often my experience is that I will have side effects. I do not want any foreign objects left in my body to wander around, to be reacted to to upset my immune system and to generally be where they don't belong. Can I make the request that the biopsy be done without the foreign body left behind. Now I know that it will make it easier for the next doc to do his job. But I am a human being and I should be able to say what belongs in my body and what does not. And if this was a piece of metal that needed to be there to hold a bone together then I could see the need but this not the case. After all marking of the spot can be done with some diligence by a good mapping of the MRI. And always first do no harm! Is this a request I can make and expect to be honored without them rejecting the entire biopsy process? Thank you again in advance for your advice!
Best - Deirdre
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Thanks! The extra mammogram is necessary for technical reasons. 2. The titanium chip will remain in place exactly where it is placed - that is after all its reason for being there. 3. There is now a very large and long experience of titanium implants. 4. Titanium is the best known implant material to date, extremely well tolerated and so far with NO known biological side effects including immunological. 5. So in at least this case benign means exactly "no known side effects to date". 6. No one can force you to accept the chip. 7. If your no would mean no biopsy I do not know since I do not know the policies of your clinic. You will have to ask them directly. In my opinion not necessarily, but I do not know. Good luck! Merry X-mas & A Happy New Year!
AnswerI'm sorry I did not express myself clearly enough! What I meant was that it was not necessary for them to say no to your biopsy just because you do not want the titanium clip. Obviously and unfortunately they were of another opinion! However I have to tell you that I'm sorry you do not go ahead with the biopsy, which in my opinion is much more important - and I'm thinking about your health - than a tiny titanium clip! Please, do change your mind on that point! Unfortunately you are also very much mistaken with regards to the causes of the increased rate of breast cancer.I wish you were right because then it would be rather easy to correct it. Instead that rate increase is fully explained by: 1. More women living to a higher age - cancer risks increase with age. 2. Women tend to have fewer children and start to have them later in life than before. Both these factors are known to increase breast cancer risks. 3. Women nurse their babies less than before. Also a risk factor. 4. Women are taller and heavier in general than before and start to menstruate earlier - all signs of better nutrition but unfortunately also risk factors with regards to breast cancer. 5. For the same reasons they also tend to stop mestruating later in life. A known risk factor too. If you add these known increased risk factors upp they very well correspond to the increased rate of breast cancer. You can for example see it in women of Japanese origin in the U.S.A. Japanese women tended to have a low breast cancer rate. It has taken them around 3 generations in the U.S.A. to fully adopt the same life style pattern as their Caucasian sisters and in the process also get around the same breast cancer rate. Also in Japan itself you can now see the same process going on. Since it is the same population under a rather short time there are no genetic changes. The changes we do see correspond well to KNOWN risk factor increases so at least for the moment we can Apply Occam's razor to this logical problem and find that no previously unknown explanations have to be found in order to find an explanation to this increase. So no medical industry can be blamed for this. Instead, in spite of the increased morbidity rates (frequency of breast cancer), the mortality (frequency of deaths) rates in breast cancer have actually gone down somewhat. THAT can probably be "blamed" on the industry! But it is and remains an improvement!
