I read an article printed in The Wall Street Journal on February 4th, 2009, by Tara Parker-Pope, and felt it was worth sharing.
Being women who care about their breast health, we all know the anxiety that comes from waiting for results from medical
tests that we undergo. A study was recently conducted about this stress and the results are not really surprising. I
would like to share this article with you.
Harvard researchers tracked 126 women who were undergoing breast biopsy, monitoring their levels of the stress hormone
cortisol while they waited. Waiting days for the results of a breast biopsy appears to affect stress hormone levels just
as much as finding out you have cancer does, a new study shows.
One of the most surprising findings, researchers said, was how long many women had to wait before receiving their results.
Many women had to wait five days or longer. By the fifth day, 37 women learned
their biopsy was benign, 16 learned they had cancer and 73 still did not have a result, according to the report, which
appeared in the medical journal Radiology. Most of the women who did not have a diagnosis had not received any information
or explanation for the delay.
Women who were still uncertain about their diagnosis had abnormal cortisol levels that were "essentially indistinguishable"
from the cortisol profiles of the women who were told they had cancer. And women without a diagnosis had significantly worse
cortisol profiles compared to women who had received benign test results.
"If you talk to any woman who has had a biopsy who has had to wait for results, she will tell you it's a horrible roller
coaster," said Dr. Elvira V. Lang, associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center. "Even when patients hear they have a cancer, they can start doing something. But if you hang in there for
five days and you still don't know what direction it goes, it's just very stressful."
The concern, Dr. Lang said, is that cortisol levels can influence wound healing and immune response, raising a woman's
potential health risks if she ultimately needs to be treated for cancer. And the stress and anxiety of waiting also
affects the quality of life of a woman, her family and her ability to function well at work, she said.
Dr. Lang said the research should spur hospitals to focus not only on speeding up test results, but on improving
communication and possibly offering psychological services to women who are waiting for a diagnosis. The study was
funded by the Department of Defense breast cancer research program.
"We have to work much faster to get results to women," Dr. Lang said. "You want to keep stressors as profound as
this, as short as possible."
Being a patient at Breastnet, you know that our philosophy has always been to deliver test results to you at the
time of your appointment so you do not have to stress over waiting for results. Any additional views or ultrasound
are performed at the time of your visit. If a needle biopsy of a suspicious finding is indicated, this can be
performed within 24 hours and results are communicated to you the next day by our physician, circumventing the
usual delays that occur with these procedures.
At Breastnet, we respect your body...your mind...and your time - we never want you to worry, wonder or wait for results!
