Moreover, with increased screening, more rapid and more pronounced falls in breast cancer mortality would be expected in countries that implemented mammography screening programmes at end of the 1980s than in countries that implemented programmes ten to fifteen years later. So, not surprisingly, most organizations agree that yearly breast cancer screening with a breast exam and a mammogram is the way to go for women ages 50-70.
Advertisement
Extent of screening, breast cancer incidence, and mortality in women 40 years and older in 547 U.S. counties. All of them had undergone breast cancer screening in 2000, and about 53,207 were eventually diagnoses with breast cancer between that initial diagnosis and up until December 2010.
He also said that there are also studies that show the declines in mortalities as results of breast cancer to be the same in regions that integrated mammography in the 80s as others that did the same up to 20 years later.
Routine breast cancer screening may be incorrectly picking up women who do not actually have the disease, research suggests. The accelerated screening helped detect 16 percent more cancers, wherein 25 percent more small tumors and 7 percent more large ones were found. However, the rate of breast cancer deaths remained unbudged. But the death rate from breast cancer did not decrease. “The simplest explanation is widespread overdiagnosis, which increases the incidence of small cancers without changing mortality”. The researcher, however, said that screening for colorectal and cervical cancers can reduce the number of advanced cancers significantly.
The researchers agreed that people should “be wary” of studies like theirs that examine populations instead of individuals. Overdiagnosis occurs when breast cancer screening discovers a tumor that would otherwise not cause disease or symptoms.
Even though the debate is ongoing between supporters of screening mammograms and skeptics, the number of studies that back up the efficiency of screening remains higher. However, according to a recent US study, that may not be entirely true.
The procedure most frequently used for detecting early-stage breast cancer may not play as pivotal a role in saving lives as commonly believed, according to a pair of studies published this week.
Since this is sure going to get confusing to many women and medical practitioners out there, the researchers say there is little they can do to change the facts.
However, the new findings show that some women may be able to have less frequent mammograms, said Dr. Harold Burstein, a senior physician with the breast oncology program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
The medical community has known about overdiagnosis and overtreatment for years, documenting the problem in a range of cancers – in breast, prostate, lung, and thyroid (which you can see in the chart above). “If we are going to look for trouble, we need a test that is not blind to it”.
Advertisement
Dr. Joann Elmore and Ruth Etzioni of the University of Washington in Seattle agree in an editorial that the study’s results are limited by the potential of ecological bias.
