Why the New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines Won’t Save More Women
On May 9, a draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced that women should begin screening for breast cancer at age 40 and every other year after that. The change contrasts with their 2009 recommendation that women start screening for breast cancer a decade later, at age 50.
Dr. Carol Mangione, previous task force chair, said, “This new recommendation will help save lives and prevent more women from dying due to breast cancer.”
The new guidelines raise the question of whether another decade’s worth of mammograms—which involve placing the breast in a machine and pressing it with up to 45 pounds of pressure (pdf) while blasting it with ionizing radiation—is the best way to prevent more deaths from a disease that can be caused by exposure to radiation?…