Mammogram Warns Against Cancer

Mammogram Warns Against Cancer.
Often-conflicting results from studies on the value of procedure mammography have only fueled the argument about how often women should get a mammogram and at what age they should start. In a new examination of previous research, experts have applied the same statistical yardstick to four large studies and re-examined the results. They found that the benefits are more in conformance across the large studies than previously thought. All the studies showed a affluent reduction in breast cancer deaths with mammography screening.

So "Women should be reassured that mammography is completely effective," said study researcher Robert Smith, senior manager of cancer screening for the American Cancer Society. Smith is scheduled to present the findings this week at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The findings also were published in the November distribution of the weekly Breast Cancer Management.

In 2009, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an self-assured group of national experts, updated its recommendation on mammography, advising women elderly 50 to 74 to get mammograms every two years, not annually.The group also advised women venerable 40 to 49 to talk to their doctors about benefits and harms, and decide on an lone basis whether to start screening. Other organizations, including the American Cancer Society, on to recommend annual screening mammograms beginning at age 40.

In assessing mammography's benefits and harms, researchers often demeanour at the number of women who must be screened to prevent one death from breast cancer - a issue that has ranged widely among studies. In assessing harms, experts defraud into account the possibility of false positives. Other possible harms include finding a cancer that would not otherwise have been found on screening (and not been questionable in a woman's lifetime) and anxiety associated with additional testing.

Smith's party looked at four large, well-known reviews of the benefit of mammography. These included the Nordic Cochrane review, the UK Independent Breast Screening Review, the USPSTF over again and the European Screening Network review. To homogenize the estimates of how many women need to be screened to debar one breast cancer death, the researchers applied the data from each of the four reviews to the scenario reach-me-down in the UK study.

Before this standardized review, the number of women who must be screened to prevent one death ranged from 111 to 2000 amid the studies. Smith's team found that estimates of the benefits and harms were all based on particular situations. Different age groups were being screened, for instance, and different follow-up periods were used. Some studies looked at the million of women for whom screening is offered and others looked at the horde who actually got mammograms. There often is a huge difference between those two groups.

So "Thirty to 40 percent don't show up, and they are counted as having a mammogram although they did not when they go west of breast cancer. This hugely depresses the benefits. If you don't have a covet follow-up, you are not able to accurately measure the benefit. Some women decease 20 or more years after the diagnosis". After the researchers used a single, workaday scenario, the gap in benefit estimates among studies dropped substantially - ranging from 64 to 257 women who must be screened to mitigate a single death from breast cancer.

Dr Michael LeFevre, co-vice chairman of the USPSTF, reviewed the strange findings but was not involved in the study. "For women superannuated 50 to 69, it confirms that mammography can reduce deaths from titty cancer. The new analysis doesn't include women in their 40s, which is one of the central parts of the unbroken debate about the use of screening mammography. The task force is in the process of updating the 2009 commendation who is also a professor of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri. "The update is not in effect to the re-analysis hydroxycut. It's standard timing for an update".