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...after taking a more in-depth look at the numbers, the task force decided that the risks of mammography for women in their 40s do not outweigh the small benefit that the screens provide. On top of that, the panel recommended that doctors no longer urge women to perform monthly breast self-exams at home, citing a lack of scientific evidence to support that they save lives...
...without annual screening, according to the computer models. That means that with routine screening, which leads to a 15% lower risk of death from breast cancer, a woman's absolute risk drops to 2.6%. Small numbers in either case. Put another way, the panel concluded, the benefit of routine mammograms for women in their 40s is one fewer death for every 1,904 women screened annually for up to a decade...
...That benefit increases, however, with the age of the women being screened, as the risk of breast cancer rises: among women 50 to 59, one death is averted for every 1,339 women routinely screened; among women 60 to 69, 377 mammograms would be needed to prevent one death. The task force's computer models further showed that shifting women's screening schedule from yearly to once every two years retains 81% of the benefit of screening while reducing the harms like false positives by half...
...screened, says Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chair of the task force. The new guidelines were meant to trigger and inform discussion between women in their 40s and their doctors about routine screening. "We thought we were saying that the evidence shows that there is this amount of benefit and this amount of potential harm for women in their 40s," she says. "Which suggests that routine screening is not appropriate. But the word routine clearly got lost...
...panel stands by its new recommendations, relying on the data, which simply do not support the benefit of routine screening when balanced with risks, among younger women. The new recommendations are also backed by some prominent physicians, including the cancer surgeon Dr. Susan Love, who agree there's insufficient data to show that screening under 50 works. The debate, says Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of ACS, is not likely to end soon. "This is the beginning of a discussion that will likely continue vigorously over the next several months, if not years," he predicts...