Leading breast oncologists warn of dangers of Task Force recommendations
"The recommendation to change breast screening is a huge step backwards," says Dr. Marisa Weiss, a leading breast oncologist and founder and president of Breastcancer.org.
The proposed new guidelines call for mammograms to start at age 50 and to be done every other year instead of every year starting at age 40, as recommended by current guidelines.
"The data simply does not account for the human perspective. It would be an enormous mistake to allow outdated data using older technology provided by computer-generated analysis to dictate how health care professionals screen women for early detection of breast cancer. These are real people with their lives at stake ... for whom mammography has a proven survival benefit."
The letter to the Breastcancer.org community follows:
Dear Breastcancer.org Member:
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended dramatic changes to current breast cancer screening guidelines. Breastcancer.org is strongly opposed to these recommendations.
The proposed new guidelines recommend starting regular screening mammograms at age 50, rather than at age 40 as current guidelines recommend. They recommend screening before age 50 only for women with a much-higher-than-average risk of breast cancer. The proposed new guidelines also call for mammograms to be done every other year instead of every year, as recommended by current guidelines.
The proposed new guidelines are based on research that looks at the effect of breast cancer screening on society from a public health perspective. This means the researchers were looking at how changing breast cancer screening guidelines would affect the overall public, rather than individual women. In proposing the changes, the task force members said that starting mammograms later in life and doing mammograms less often would save a large amount of money. It also means that about 3% more women would die from breast cancer each year. The task force members felt that the amount of money saved (from fewer mammograms and side effects of extra biopsies and treatment) was greater than the value of more lives saved (3% fewer women surviving breast cancer).
At Breastcancer.org, we are deeply troubled by both the analysis that led to these proposed guideline changes and the effect these proposed changes would have on the health and lives of women. Our specific concerns: