<p>This just doesn’t sound like a wise recommendation.</p>
<p>[New</a> Cancer Guidelines Say to Start Mammograms at 50, Not 40 - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News - FOXNews.com](<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575354,00.html]New”>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575354,00.html)</p>
<p>This hits close to to home. My cancer was found through a mammogram at 42 years old. No family history, no drinking, no smoking and exercising daily. I had a mammogram at 40 and the doctor said I only needed one every other year. If I had the mammogram at 41 they would have caught the cancer earlier. Better safe than sorry.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I know so many other women with similar stories. I really don’t think this new guideline is good at all.</p>
<p>Boomer- I wish you well.</p>
<p>This new “advice” will be sure to increase breast cancer deaths if followed. Boomer is not the only one with a story of early asymptomatic detection of cancer found by “routine” screening. Every x-ray comes with a risk, and patients should know this. However, let the patients decide. My current health insurance allows less than $100 for an in network mammogram with the minimum scans that are entailed, inclusive of the fee of the doctor and the use of the machine and technician. I pay more than 30% of the cost of the scan myself. This is from a big insurance company that insures many people in the state, so this fee is not unusually small. So for less than $70 per year, lives will be lost. Fees for radiologists are not on the whole increasing. Over time the real dollar compensation has decreased tremendously. </p>
<p>Also after age 74, no screening is being recommended at all. Many cancers occur after this age.</p>
<p>There have been multiple studies to the contrary anothermom2.<br>
Breast cancer is not one disease but mulitple DIFFERENT diseases. You have to look at the risk/benefit.
The risk of being unnessarily radiated is very real. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recently come out saying too many CT scans are being done on kids.
The exposure to radiation is cumulative.</p>
<p>In my case, I have had mammograms for the past 10 years. Two years ago - they “found something”. I had to go back and be radiated again. false alarm.
But individual cases, like mine and boomer22’s (God Bless you boomer - hope you are well) don’t really matter in the grand scheme. You need to look at the risk of radiating women for 10 years - plus their increased radiation level when there is a false alarm to the benefit of waiting. we don’t know how many women have cancer due to excessive radiation.</p>
<p>True, mammograms pick up lots of breast cancers when they are small. But many of these are not very virulent. So you have to remove those from the equation since the outcome of detecting the cancer and removing it is the same as doing nothing.
The most dangerous breast cancers are those that occur in premenopausal women in their 30’s. Their outcome today is very grave but we don’t mammogram every woman when they turn 30.</p>
<p>I am going to try and say something that I don’t want to be taken the wrong way. I know women who have had breast cancer - it is frightening. I think in someways, my generation had been conditioned that if we don’t have the mammogram on our 40th birhtday we are doomed. We then become stressed out when the results are not “normal”. Read that other thread - about mammograms. How many women have been consumed and frightened because of waiting for a repeat - thousands.
This recommendation is a result of a number of studies saying that we can just chill.
It reminds me of the advent of lumpectomies. 20 years ago many physicians and women refused to have them. Even if the outcome was as good as lopping off the whole breast. The psychology was - get rid of it all. Women have become more empowered now and are more comfortable with a lumpectomy when it’s appropriate.</p>
<p>But it’s not just the risk of X-rays - it’s the false positives and extra testing done, and unnecessary treatment because of early screening. I’m heading back this morning for ultrasound because of a cyst. I’ve had to go back for more pictures due to dense tissue, cysts, etc before, and I’ve only been going every 2 years in my 40’s.</p>
<p>I think this is a valid point - "Mammograms can find cancer early, and two-thirds of women over 40 report having had the test in the previous two years. But how much they cut the risk of dying of the disease, and at what cost in terms of unneeded biopsies, expense and worry, have been debated.</p>
<p>In most women, tumors are slow-growing, and that likelihood increases with age. So there is little risk by extending the time between mammograms, some researchers say. Even for the minority of women with aggressive, fast-growing tumors, annual screening will make little difference in survival odds."</p>
<p>mamabear - I agree…
here is the washington post’s article:
[url=<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/16/AR2009111602822.html?hpid=topnews]washingtonpost.com[/url”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/16/AR2009111602822.html?hpid=topnews]washingtonpost.com[/url</a>]</p>
<p>partial quote:
</p>
<p>I know so many women who have had breast cancer that I feel like it’s not “if” but “when.” Three-forths of them have been under 50 and the two who didn’t survive were in their mid-40s when they first discovered the cancer.</p>
<p>I fully recognize that the process to date leaves something to be desired. A false positive is a very scary experience. And I also think that SOME, not many, “situations” may take care of themselves if left alone. I also worry about the over exposure to radiation. If a woman and her doctor are comfortable with making the decision to increase the time between screenings-that’s fine by me. But PLEASE do not turn it into a new regulation that makes it easier for insurance companies to deny coverage.</p>
<p>Per the new recommendations by the Preventive Services Task Force of the Department of Health, if applied 10 years ago - I’d probably be dead. But apparently that’s “okay” because the cost savings more than justify the loss of a few lives. These guidelines, if followed, WILL result in an increase in the number of breast cancer deaths for women in their 40s; “just not that many”. But oh boy - the money that will be saved…</p>
<p>(And no self exam? REALLY? Seriously, I am not exaggerating when I say I’d probably be dead now! Nope, don’t feel so good about these new recommendations.)</p>
<p>BE CAREFUL. This is a government panel, the type that is formed and the recommendations used as the basis for PAYMENTS for mammograms by Medicare and Medicaid. Soon after private insurers follow suit. </p>
<p>You may see this as a stepping stone for insurers to NOT cover mammograms before 50 or after 74. BIG MISTAKE.</p>
<p>This was not the NIH or ACS etc. This was a hand picked government panel, and I feel there was some bias going into their review of the data. </p>
<p>You can decide for yourself. But this panel is not changing what I recommend to my patients. The ultimate goal of a panel like this is to save money. Me, I would rather a false positive and a biopsy to prove it than a breast cancer diagnosis delayed by a year.</p>
<p>Well, there are women in their 20’s and 30’s who get breast cancer - not many but when they do get it the prognosis is very dire. Yet, we don’t routinely screen females when they develop breasts.
We could and it would save lives but cost a bundle of money. It would also expose a lot of women to false positives and excessive and unnecessary treatment.
The benchmark of age 40 was made up - given the best scientific knowledge at that time.
History and research have proven different, so they come up with a new benchmark.</p>
<p>Self-exams, sure keep doing them if it brings you comfort. Research has shown they do not prolong life. Sometimes the things that should be logical or that we know to be true don’t prove to be true.
I think we are going to see the same sort of recommendations soon with men and prostate screening.<br>
Breast cancer is a very emotionally charged issue. The American Cancer Society sees this as a smack in the face.
Personally, I see it as empowering women. We can decide after a conversation with our health care professional what is right for us without being made to feel like we are suicidal for not getting the mammogram each year.</p>
<p>This debate has been going on a long time. As I understand it, age-adjusted mortality from breast cancer has barely changed since the earliest time when it is possible to calculate it, which is the early 19th Century. Most of the advancements in cures are attributable to defining as “cancer” more conditions that are unlikely to cause death under any circumstances, so the likelihood of success when they are treated is very high – and that’s not the false positives, that’s the true positives. According to the data, one life gets saved (I think that means 5-year survival) for every 1,900 women age 40-49 without known risk factors who are screened, but, in addition to the screenings themselves, hundreds of those women will have results, including false positives, that lead to some level of followup and/or treatment.</p>
<p>So it’s a fairly stark choice: Very significant expense and fear, for a definite but small benefit. Of course, the American Cancer Society doesn’t mind a bit that millions of women experience a brush with breast cancer – that’s the base of its support. And radiologists and oncologists have invested a lot in the human and physical capacity necessary to screen and to treat all those women, so they’re not happy about the change either. I’m not certain what I think, but I certainly understand the argument that the cost-benefit equation here is out of whack.</p>
<p>FallGirl and anothermom2 - thanks for your thoughts. I am going on eight years out and doing great!</p>
<p>sunnyflorida, I agree with you. IMO–This is a sign of what Obama wants which is a more European approach to health care with the government dictating what procedures a person can and can not have done. I don’t view this latest mammogram announcement as a positive sign of what’s to come.</p>
<p>This is science, not politics. Read what JHS said above, and what others have said. Breast cancer is many diseases. My MIL had a mammogram which found nothing; months later her gyn found a lump which ultimately killed her. It was an agressive cancer; detection was useless.</p>
<p>Many, many cancers detected early by mammograms are the slow growing, non-agressive ones that will never cause harm, or could be operated on when they’re more apparent and still have been caught well before they masticize, which they may never do.</p>
<p>I understand that those who had cancers detected early think that the mammogram saved their lives, but that’s a perception, not necessarily the truth.</p>
<p>Don’t kid yourself into believing that this “find” isn’t tied to the current administration’s political agenda.</p>
<p>I also find it hard to believe that this recommendation should be applied to ALL women. What about the women with a history of breast cancer in the family?</p>
<p>It does not apply to them. All the articles I read made that clear.</p>
<p>And this information has been available before. It’s not a new finding.</p>
<p>I follow it already.</p>
<p>I personally would like to see more studies about the causes of breast cancer. There are not enough studies, in my opinion, about how to prevent breast cancer.
How about studies to show if indeed that wearing bras, or high fat diets, (like some people are saying) could be responsible for beast cancer?
My SIL had a cyst removed twice from her breast, in the last four years. How about a solution that keeps her from having them?
I know, I sound naive, we are after all in America where the treating of cancer patients is a big business.
FWIW, I do agree with the recommendation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>All panels are ‘hand picked’. I’d like to know what evidence indicates this panel was deliberately chosen in order to produce a biased recommendation.</p>
<p>When reading one of the articles this morning, I made the discovery that my own long-time doctor is one of the panel’s members. I am having a hard time imagining how he gains to benefit from this recommendation, or what possible bias he would have in favor of reducing screenings. Based on my knowledge of his career, training and personality, I am assuming he was chosen because he is a well-respected practitioner, medical school professor and department head, and holds advanced degrees in public health as well as medical training.</p>
<p>But then, I am not really a proponent of conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>I’m also not a proponent of the current health reform proposals, and it is a mystery to me why this report is seen as part of a health reform plot. Reducing unnecessary costs (and potentially detrimental treatments) reduces the need for upending the whole system; it is not an argument in favor of the House/Senate/presidential proposals.</p>
<p>Oh, finally!
So agree with the recommendation. Very strongly believe that we are overthreating breast cancer here in the US. Someone mentioned prostate cancer - same story. I have listened to a great interview with prostate cancer researcher. Apparently PSA testing is completely off. In 2/3 of cases when PSA is elevated it is elevated due to the benign prostate enlargement, only in 1/3 of cases it is due to tumor/cancer growth, but guess what, MAJORITY od those tumors are benign and do not have to be treated. Tell it to the patient though when the doctor tells him that his PSA in elevated and we need to investigate.
We are going crazy in diagnostic radiology here. I know how many of my patients are being screen in the radiology unnecessarily.
Do you realize how dangerous CT scans are?
[BBC</a> NEWS | Health | Scan may increase cancer risk](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3605074.stm]BBC”>BBC NEWS | Health | Scan may increase cancer risk)
I actually refuse to have dental x-rays done routinely with every check up. If there is a question - please x-ray, but if you want to do it routinely - no. Of course it makes our doctor exam us more closely :)</p>