Fiche publication
Date publication
mars 2013
Résumé
Mammogram screening has become a social fact. Each year, in France and elsewhere, millions of women undergo this test which is now seen as a medical necessity. The debate on their validity is no longer limited to a restricted group of specialists, but has recently spilled out into the public arena. A generous medical act and presumably one that saves lives, is mass screening for breast cancer a solution or a problem? Apart from the technical aspects concerning its introduction and function, it raises several questions: medical truth, the cancer conundrum, the tragic dimension of progress, freedom for women in a male-dominated world, values promoted by hypermodern societies. Questioning the validity of this mass screening also exposes accusations of ignorance, pessimism, fatalism, even the indifference towards women's causes. What to say, as all questioning seems to be all too often perceived as confrontation? The breast-a primordial subject, highly polysemous, a marker of the female identity, an image of Mother goddess and Eros. Cancer - a monstrous figure and biological misfortune, a reminder of our own mortality, a symbol of an uncertain world and one without meaning.
Référence
Psycho-oncologie. 2013 Mar;7(1):57-65.
