As it is with PSA tests and prostate cancer survival, so it seems with mammograms and breast cancer deaths. A Danish study, reported in HealthDay has concluded that screening women for breast cancer does not appear to increase overall
survival from the disease. HealthDay reports that the study compared the changes in death rates
from breast cancer in two Danish screening programs with areas in
Denmark that do not screen women for breast cancer. They looked at the
10-year period after screening would be expected to have an effect on
breast cancer deaths and compared that with the 10-year period before
screening was started. The researchers found that found among women aged 55 to 74, breast cancer deaths dropped by 1
percent per year in the screened areas, compared with 2 percent per year
in the non-screened areas. Among women aged 35 to 54, deaths from
breast cancer dropped by 5 percent per year in the screened areas and 6
percent per year in the non-screened areas. For women aged 75 to 84,
there was no significant change in breast cancer mortality either with
screened or non-screened areas, the researchers noted. What's the lesson here? The researchers believe that the decline in breast cancer mortality began years before the
mammography screening program did, and the declines in breast cancer
mortality were much larger in age groups too young to benefit than in
the age groups that could. The researchers point out that breast cancer mortality in the U.S. has declined much more in women below
50 years than in women over 50 years, where the expected effect and
screening coverage is larger.
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Tell that to my 44 year old cousin whose breast cancer was found thanks to a mammogram. Sounds like were getting propagandized to prepare us for cutbacks in our new Obamacare.
I have been a mammographer for 28 years and let me just set the record straight, mammograms do save lives, I see it every day, I have done countless mammograms on women under 50, under 40 and even under 30 which have shown breast cancer. This is pure rubbish and it truly infuriates me that such a lie has been spread.
That is exactly what I have been thinking every time they publish another study that shows early screening is a waste of money!!
I think you are SPOT ON with that opinion….why else would stocks for insurance companies GO UP after a bill was signed to “protect” us from their evil, profit-driven practices???
I also am very skeptical about headlines like this, and with all due respect, I’ll seek the counsel of reputable medical websites like WebMD.com and the Mayo Clinic, and a trusted personal physician, not “Sports Geezer” or some isolated “Danish study”, before I would even think of advising any of my loved ones to stop getting this time tested procedure.
I also wouldn’t necessarily blame this on “Obamacare propaganda”. I might go the other way, and classify it with those studies that supposedly show that preventive health care does not improve mortality rates — “so who needs health insurance ?” That is very dangerous advice, no matter what ideological corner it’s coming from.
That’s my $0.02 on this.
Now that we have Obama care get ready to read lots more crap like this.
Excellent article on the topic of screening mammography. I was actually impressed at the level of the information. Many of the points have been raised over the years by other critics of screening mammography, and in my opinion, valid criticisms.
Especially disturbing is that mammography screening generates large numbers of procedures, biopsies and surgeries, with little impact on the numbers of advanced breast cancers. This point was raised by Laura Esserman in her JAMA article. This new study by Karsten Juhl Jørgensen, M.D., of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark is very supportive of Dr Esserman’s conclusions.
One looming issue is the large numbers of DCIS detected by mammography as small calcifications. Although DCIS is treated aggressively as an invasive cancer, it is really very indolent. DCIS has a 98% -5 year survival with no treatment, and pathologists have been thinking about changing the nomenclature by removing the word “cancer” from its name.
For more: http://www.drdach.com/Mammogram_screening_cancer.html
jeffrey dach md
The power of insurance companies to actually purchase and sponsor such media to deter from paying medical institutions that provide mammograms. They will spend millions in false claims and polls along with reports that are quite bogus as well.
Remember, insurance companies just like pharmaceuticals have the most powerful lobbyists in the world; our government supports such organizations; wait, wasn’t Obama supposed to deter such groups? Yes, but did not.