Greensboro doctor says don’t stop mammograms
GREENSBORO — If you’re a woman over 40, get a mammogram every year.
Dr. Beth Brown , director of The Breast Center of Greensboro Imaging , gave that recommendation as a counter to the advice this week from a federal government panel, which said most women in their 40s should not routinely get mammograms and that women in their 50s should get them every two years.
Of the 509 cases of breast cancer detected through Greensboro Imaging so far this year, Brown said 139 were in women younger than 50 .
“And the bottom line is that this panel may have made this recommendation, but patients should be referred back to the American Cancer Society recommendation,” Brown said.
The American Cancer Society has encouraged women, for years, to schedule mammograms beginning at age 40 and each year thereafter. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued its guidelines Monday.
“I work with all radiologists, and we’re all just mortified,” Brown said of the new recommendations, “and this just goes in the face of all the data.”
The task force said that mammograms might even do more harm than good, with unnecessary biopsies, false diagnoses and undue stress on patients. In Europe, Canada and other developed nations, many women don’t receive mammograms until age 50 . The task force’s advice does not apply to women with a high risk of breast cancer because of family history or gene mutations.
Two women under 50 who have faced or have breast cancer credit a mammogram for saving their lives.
“You’re going to go the other way and end up with more mortalities than with early detection,” said Diane Darnell , 43, who was diagnosed five years ago and has been living with breast cancer .
“I’m afraid that there will be people who will slip through the cracks,” Darnell said.
Laura Craven is a breast cancer survivor who credits detection through a mammogram for saving her life.
“Good God, it’s so stupid to me,” she said of the task force recommendation. “And the people who talk about it causing unnecessary worry — do you worry that you have cancer and don’t know it?”
Craven, who is 46, was diagnosed when she was 39 .
“My gynecologist recommended, as a good prevention, a baseline mammogram when I was 35,” she said.
Of course, the option will remain for women to receive mammograms any time, but some fear that insurance companies might adjust policies based on task force recommendations, though many who studied the same data reached different conclusions.
Such as the American Cancer Society.
“Our experts make this recommendation (mammograms beginning at age 40) having reviewed virtually all the same data reviewed by the USPSTF, but also additional data that the (task force) did not consider,” Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society , said in a statement Monday . “When recommendations are based on judgments about the balance of risks and benefits, reasonable experts can look at the same data and reach different conclusions.”
Brown said Tuesday that she’s been speaking with colleagues about the message from the federal government.
“And I think that patients, on the whole, are going to be very confused by this,” she said.
Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com
Accompanying Photos
LEARN MORE ONLINE
American Cancer Society: www.cancer.org
Society of Breast Imaging: www.sbi-online.org
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force: www.ahrq.gov/CLINIC/uspstfix.htm
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