Word: womens
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...USPSTF, a volunteer group of 16 health professionals, is often considered to issue the most conservative recommendations compared with other national groups. In 2002, for instance, it called for breast-cancer screening every one or two years for women ages 40 to 49, while other guidelines advocated yearly tests. For its updated 2009 recommendations, the USPSTF analyzed clinical trials on the benefits of mammography - much of that same research was also evaluated for the task force's 2002 decision - while folding in new data on the risks and harms of screening. Those risks include false positive results, over-diagnosis, patient...
...panel also commissioned computer-modeling studies that weighed the benefits of routine screening (reduction in death rate) against its risks, depending on the ages of the women being screened and how often they were tested - every year or every other year...
Overall, based on a review of mammography trials, the panel found that having a yearly mammogram screening cuts the risk of breast-cancer death 15% in women ages 40 to 49. That reduction, it should be noted, is relative, not absolute. The absolute risk of breast-cancer death after age 40 is 3% 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...
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...
Combined, the findings led the panel to reverse their 2002 recommendations on mammography, which extended the advice, originally targeting women over 50, to also include women in their 40s. The new recommendations, published in the Nov. 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, once again leave out the younger women and suggest that those over 50 get screened biennially. But the recommendations do not instruct women under 50 never to get 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...