When Doctors Do Too Much

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Lymph Node Study Shakes Breast Cancer Treatment,” shows what happens when doctors overtreat their patients. It describes a recent study that found a common procedure for breast cancer victims, the removal of lymph nodes in their armpits to prevent its spread, makes no difference in the survival rate for a large number of women.

According to the article, women who are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatment for breast cancer show no difference in survival rates whether or not the lymph nodes are removed, a procedure that has been followed for 100 years. And the removal of these nodes can cause serious complications in about 20 percent of the cases, including numbness, shoulder pain and limitation of motion.

Still, the article described a reluctance among many, both doctors and patients alike, to cut out the treatment. It appears a lot easier to add more procedures when indicated by a study than it is to remove them.

Anyway, science marches on. The scientific method is no respecter of persons or opinions and is based solely on experimentation and neutral evaluation of the results. According to this process, the removal of armpit nodes for women undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for breast cancer is no longer necessary.