Warning on early breast cancer screening

A new study on the benefits of breast cancer screening has shown that breast cancer screening has been overstated. According to the study, carried out by a top medic, he warned that breast cancer screening can lead to patients having unnecessary surgery and harmful treatment. 

A study of women carried out in Denmark found about a third of cases involved over-diagnosis and suggested screening was not associated with a reduction in the number of advanced tumours.

Speaking on the research, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, Otis Brawley, said  

"considering all small breast cancer lesions to be deadly aggressive cancer is the pathology equivalent of racial profiling".

Brawley said that screening was important but warned of an over-reliance on screening and suggested the focus should be on disease prevention through diet and exercise.

The study looked at Denmark's screening program, which offered mammograms to women between the ages of 50 and 69, and compared incidences of tumours found in women of different age groups in screening and non-screening areas.

According to Brawley, the findings highlighted the problem of over-diagnosis, where "diseases" that were never going to cause any problem were picked up.

Paul Pharoah, a professor of cancer epidemiology at the University of Cambridge described the findings as nothing new in the debate, by, who said screening remained a personal choice.

"Consequently this study should not influence women who are considering having a screening mammogram on whether or not screening is the right thing for them," Prof Pharoah said.

"Randomised trials have shown that mammography reduces breast cancer mortality by a small amount, but this comes at the cost of increasing the number of women diagnosed and treated for breast cancer (so called over-diagnosis and over-treatment) so that some women will have unnecessary surgery and/or radiotherapy.

"Whether or not the benefit is worth the harm is an individual decision and different women will make different choices."

 The study was first published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Press Association