New Mammography Guidelines

Yesterday the government issued new guidelines on breast cancer screening. These guidelines are a major change to what we’ve been told for years.

From the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) website:

•The USPSTF recommends against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years. The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient’s values regarding specific benefits and harms.

•The USPSTF recommends biennial screening mammography for women aged 50 to 74 years.

•The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of screening mammography in women 75 years or older.

•The USPSTF recommends against teaching breast self-examination (BSE).•The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of clinical breast examination (CBE) beyond screening mammography in women 40 years or older.

•The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of either digital mammography or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instead of film mammography as screening modalities for breast cancer.

Here’s what concerns me: The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient’s values regarding specific benefits and harms. I have had too many interactions with condescending doctors who don’t value a patient’s opinion and dismiss intuition or a patient’s personal knowledge of their own body. It’s nice to think that a women interested in early mammography could have a reasonable discussion with her physician – and some will be able to – but the chances seem slim. Every doctor I visit schedules 15 minute appointments, hardly enough time to have a meaningful discussion.

Still, the research is interesting and the new guidelines are apparently more in line with international guidelines.  Read more from the USPSTF here.

The American Cancer Society, however, is not changing its guidelines. Read their response to the new guidelines here.

Take a look at both sides. What do you think? Do the benefits of regular mammograms outweigh the risks or vice versa?

Tags: healthcare reform, mammogram

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 10:12 am and is filed under Feminist Forte, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.