Do Mammograms Do More Harm Than Good?

Do mammograms do more harm than good? Not if your measure of harm is lives lost and your measure of good is lives saved. But what if you factor in the quality of life lost to false diagnoses and unnecessary treatment? That, say researchers at the Wessex Institute at the University of Southampton, changes the equation, tipping the scales at least to the point at which one must seriously question the benefits of screening. HealthDay reports that the researchers reviewed the Forrest Report, a famous 1986 study that persuaded British medical experts to recommend regular screening for breast cancer. Trouble is, they found, the Forrest report considered only lives extended; it did not consider the effects of misdiagnoses and surgery on the patients’ quality of life. When the researchers included data on false positive tests and unnecessary surgery, the benefits of screening were, in their estimation at least, cut in half. Even the scientists’ best estimates found a negative quality of life measurement for up to eight years after screening, and only modest gains after 10 years. The good news? After 20 years, the quality of life benefits improved, but much less than the Forrest Report had predicted. Read an abstract of their study in the BMJ.