The ACS states that mammograms are imperfect and are less useful in younger women and yield higher rates of costly, false positive results and further expensive testing and biopsies.
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To assess the cancer risk after false positives, Henderson and colleagues reviewed data on more than 2.2 million mammograms performed in nearly 1.3 million women aged 40 to 75 between 1994 and 2009.
In white women, use of combination therapy was associated with increased risk of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, with risk increasing as the duration increased.
Author Lynn Rosenberg of the Boston University Medical Center said that the present findings established that combination therapy in black women was associated with increased risk of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, similar to the pattern in white women.
That’s because there’s a “modest” risk that cancer will develop during the next decade, says lead author Louise M. Henderson of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. “This is not a new idea, with some retrospective, non-randomized trials showing that survival is increased if one removes the primary breast cancer”, said Dr. Charles Shapiro, director of translational breast cancer research at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City.
“We don’t want women to read this and feel anxious”, Henderson says. “It’s another piece to the puzzle of breast cancer risk”.
Depression-linked behaviours such as adopting a less healthy lifestyle, chronic stress or non-compliance with treatment, could help explain the link, said the researchers whose results are published in the journal Psycho-Oncology.
If you’re a low-income woman, you’re more likely to get screened for breast cancer if you live in a state that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act than in a state that didn’t.
Indeed, the guidelines can still be confusing to women: the American Cancer Society updated its guidelines in October, pushing back the age at which it recommends women begin annual screenings from 40 to 45.
“Adoption of Medicaid expansion by more states can result in considerable improvement of disparities in breast cancer screening, leading to better health outcomes for all women across the United States”, Dehkordy said.
During follow-up, the results showed 48,735 cancers were diagnosed.
They also did not analyze the reasons why false-positive tests or additional imaging or biopsies might be linked to increased risk of cancers being diagnosed later.
The findings may be a case of “over-reading”, she said. So it’s very important that a woman stay up to date with regular mammography. Other groups recommend other start dates.
The team found that after five years, the MRI group had a higher incidence of cancer in the opposite breast than the non-MRI group (7.2% vs. 4.0%).
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In reviewing all these findings and facts, we, the Connecticut State Conference of the NAACP’s Health Committee, find these recommendations completely incongruent with the benefit-to-risk ratio so recently cited, as it impacts the African-American community both within the state and nationally.
