Mammograms

We love the LA Times and as always they report what others miss or refuse to even investigate. So imagine our surprise when we couldn't verify their story. They got the date and the other info wrong as well, maybe. For now let's just say we can't find the survey and it's something that is of interest to us. It wasn't their regular staff it was a freelance story by Christie Aschwanden so that made sense to us.

Pearlie Leach fears were validated by the survey results which would and may discourage women from seeking treatment for breast cancer and mammograms especially among seniors. Though the survey is of British and their NHS and may be more of an indictment of their system which is highly rated and internationally regarded it may point to problems within our own system as well. Sort of like an early warning system for cancer and the elderly and the need for cancer screening. In an accompanying editorial, Lisa M. Schwartz, M.D., and Steven Woloshin, M.D. of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice in Hanover, N.H., point out that accurate screening messages should be more prominent and include risks associated with overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

The single news reports refers to an August 12 article from Journal of the National Cancer Institute (there are no August 12 articles) and says: "...that 92% of the women surveyed dramatically overestimated the ability of mammography to cut cancer deaths or said they didn't know the magnitude of its benefits. Here's how the benefits and risks stack up. If 1,000 50-year-old women have a yearly mammogram for 10 years:

• One will avoid dying from breast cancer.
• Two to 10 will be treated for a cancer that never would have harmed them.
• Ten to 15 will learn earlier that they have cancer than they would have otherwise, but this earlier diagnosis will not change their prognosis.
• One hundred to 500 will have at least one false alarm.