By John W. Lillpop
Just the thought of breast cancer is enough to drive most women to tears, if not suicide. There has never been a more brutal and vicious assault on the human female species.
Over the past decades, many women over 40 have grown accustomed to having an annual mammogram to keep abreast of their vulnerability to this hideous disease. Keeping abreast has help save lives and breasts over the years.
Alas, as reported in part at philly.com, (1) all of that may change if an influential task force has its way:
“Women in their 40s should not automatically be screened for breast cancer, and older women should have a mammogram every other year instead of annually, an influential federal task force has concluded, challenging a bedrock belief of cancer prevention.
“In its first reevaluation of breast-cancer screening since 2002, the panel that sets government policy on prevention recommended the radical change, citing evidence that the potential harm to women having annual exams beginning at age 40 outweighs the benefits.
"We're not saying women shouldn't get screened. Screening does saves lives," said Diana Petitti, vice chairwoman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which released the recommendations yesterday in a paper being published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine. "But we are recommending against routine screening. There are important and serious negatives or harms that need to be considered carefully."
“The task force's new guidelines, which also recommend against teaching women to do regular self-exams of their breasts and concludes that there is insufficient evidence to continue routine mammograms beyond age 74, immediately triggered intense debate.
“Several patient advocacy groups and many breast-cancer experts praised the shift, saying it represented a growing recognition that more testing, exams, and treatment were not always beneficial and, in fact, could harm patients. Mammograms produce false-positive results in about 10 percent of cases, causing anxiety and often leading to unnecessary follow-up tests and biopsies.
“But the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology, and other expert groups condemned the change, saying the benefits of routine mammography had been clearly demonstrated and played a key role in reducing the number of mastectomies and the death toll from one of the most common cancers.
"Tens of thousands of lives are being saved by mammography screening, and these idiots want to do away with it," said Daniel Kopans, a Harvard radiology professor. "It's crazy - unethical, really."
“Oncologist Mary Daly, chair of the clinical genetics department at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, said the reevaluation was flawed by its reliance on data from outmoded technology, namely film mammography. Digital mammograms, the new standard, have reduced the false-positive rate in women under 50.
"I'm not pleased, because I don't want any more women to die of breast cancer than have to," she said. "I'm going to tell my patients to continue getting screened as they have been. I'm willing to sit down and go over the data if they want to."
The big question: Will ObamaCare deny routine mammograms because of cost?
(1)
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20091117_New_mammography_advice__Less_is_more.html?posted=y&viewAll=y#comments
