離開
進入《中英對照讀新聞》Hit reset on cancer screening： "Tests not perfect" 重新定義癌症篩檢：「檢查不是完美的」
◎陳維真
It turns out that catching cancer early isn’t always as important as we thought. Some tumors are too slow-growing to ever threaten your life. Some are so aggressive that finding them early doesn’t make much difference.
原來及早發現癌症並不如我們想像中的重要。有些腫瘤生長速度慢，慢到不會威脅你的生命；有些腫瘤極具侵略性，即使及早發現也不會有太大差別。
Those complexities are changing the longtime mantra that cancer screening will save your life. In reality, it depends on the type of cancer, the test and who gets checked when. Now cancer specialists are struggling to find a new balance： to quit over-promising the power of early detection and to help people understand that the tests themselves have risks — while not scaring away those who really need it.
這些複雜的因素正在改變存在已久的口號，也就是癌症篩檢可以拯救你的性命。事實上，這要看癌症的種類和篩檢、接受篩檢的對象、時間。現在，癌症專科醫師試圖找到新的平衡：不再高估及早發現癌症的效果，並讓民眾了解，檢查也有風險—同時，也不能嚇跑真正需要檢查的病患。
Least controversial are cervical and colorectal cancer screenings. More serious questions surround other cancers — like which men should get a PSA blood test to check for prostate cancer, and whether women should start mammograms in their 40s or wait until they’re 50.
最不具爭議的是卵巢與大腸的癌症篩檢。但其他癌症就有比較嚴重的問題，例如哪種類型的男性需接受攝護腺特異抗原檢測，哪類女性在40歲時就該接受乳房X光檢查，還是該等到50歲。
Treatments have dramatically improved in recent years, saving more lives. Also, increasingly powerful mammograms are detecting more low-risk tumors, the kind that probably wouldn’t have threatened a woman’s life in the first place.
近年來治療方法有大幅改進，也拯救更多生命。但同時，越來越精進的乳房X光檢查技術也檢查到許多風險相當低的腫瘤，這些腫瘤可能原本就不會威脅婦女的生命。
新聞辭典：
mantra：名詞，真言；（印度教、大乘佛教中的）祈禱文，也可引申為口頭禪、口號之意。例句：His mantra is to relax and stop worrying about expectations — success comes when one least expects it.（他的口頭禪就是放鬆，不要擔心期待的事情，因為成功總在預想不到的時刻到來。）
spot：動詞，看見、注意到、發現。例句：I’ve just spotted a mistake on the newspaper.（我剛在報紙上看到錯誤。）
in the first place：片語，起初、原本。例句：We shouldn’t get involved in the conversation in the first place.（我們原本就不該加入這個話題。）
