One of the biggest draws on this blog has been this entry: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2012/01/metastatic-breast-cancer-brain-cancer.html
Why is that? What is it with brain cancer -- breast cancer related or not? How many people HAVE brain cancer and how many people THINK they have brain cancer? After re-reading the article, come back here and we’ll continue our discussion!
First some facts: brain cancer accounts for “less than 1 percent of all cancers, 2.4 percent of all cancer deaths, and 20–25 percent of pediatric cancers. Ultimately, it is estimated there are 13,000 deaths per year in the United States alone as a result of brain tumors…”
OK – so hardly anyone gets brain cancer, even when it arises as a metastatic form of breast, lung or skin cancer. It JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN VERY OFTEN. So why do people type it into their search engine so often?
How many of you remember the old, old movie, KINDERGARTEN COP? An old Schwarzenegger comedy, IMDb describes it this way, “A tough cop is given his most difficult assignment: masquerade as a kindergarten teacher in order to find a drug dealer.”
The only lines I remember from the whole movie (and I’m one of those people who can quote swaths of my favorites) are these:
“Detective John Kimble: I have a headache.
Lowell: It might be a tumor.
Detective John Kimble: It's not a tumor! It's not a tumor. At all!”
While I couldn’t find actual numbers, it seems like lots of people who get headaches run a quick GOOGLE search to see if they have brain cancer: “Do not google your symptoms! Anxiety about a possible brain tumor is a common reason for a neurological consultation in my office when patients experience a new or a different type of headache. Yet, headaches are rarely the first symptom of a tumor.”
In fact, recent studies have shown that while many people believe that unusual headaches are a sure sign of a brain tumor or brain cancer, the fact is that “Each year, doctors in the United States diagnose approximately 17,000 new primary brain tumors and 100,000 new secondary brain tumors.”
Now let’s do the math.
Current population of the USA = 314,000,000
% of people who will be diagnosed with a primary brain tumor = .00005% (in talking numbers that would be five hundred thousandths of a percent)
% of people who will be diagnosed with ANY brain tumor = .0004% (in talking numbers that would be four ten thousandths of a percent)
Of course, there are the fund raisers who will make the problem worse by pumping the numbers, so let’s figure it based on THEIR numbers, “In 2012, an estimated 66,290 new primary brain tumor diagnoses will be made in the U.S…” I’ll be rounding that to 67,000 for ease of calculations:
Current population of the USA = 314,000,000
% of people who will be diagnosed with a primary brain tumor = .0002% (in talking numbers that would be two ten thousandths of a percent)
% of people who will be diagnosed with ANY brain tumor = they don’t say
There are YOUR chances and MY chances of being diagnosed with a brain tumor or brain cancer.
The Mayo Clinic has had so many of these types of visits that they note on their website: “Symptoms of Hypochondria / Health Anxiety vary widely from person to person. Some examples of common obsessions seen in Hypochondria / Health Anxiety are: thinking that a headache is indicative of a brain tumor; believing that a cough must be sign of lung cancer; assuming that a minor chest pain is a heart attack; thinking that a minor sore is a sign of AIDS…”
“First, 50%-60% of all people with brain tumors don't have headaches at all, Barnett says.”
So, the next time you have a headache and rush to the computer to GOOGLE brain cancer – and I hope you stop here, relax, have a cuppa (something, preferably non-alcoholic), take two aspirin (or acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or naproxene hydrochloride) and then call someone sensible in the morning.
But realize that for all practical purposes: it’s not a tumor.
Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_tumor, http://www.theibta.org/uploads/file/Statistics.htm, http://www.rosenkilde.com/Brain-Tumor.html, http://www.anxietyguru.net/brain-tumor-anxiety-overblown/, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-06-05/benign-brain-tumors/55407486/1, http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/04/07/ep.headache.brain.tumor/index.html, http://www.dana.org/news/brainhealth/detail.aspx?id=9792, http://www.braintumor.org/news/press-kit/brain-tumor-facts.html
Image: http://media1.break.com/breakstudios/2011/8/15/teachers_kindergarten-cop.jpg
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