The Beginnings Of Saving Money On Health Care
Women in their 40s should not get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer, according to updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Before having a mammogram, women ages 40 to 49 should talk to their doctors about the risks and benefits of the test, and then decide if they want to be screened, according to the task force.
For women ages 50 to 74, it recommends routine mammography screenings every two years. Risks and benefits for women age 75 and above are unknown, it said.
The group’s previous recommendation was for routine screenings every year or two for women age 40 and older.
The task force is composed of 16 health care experts, none of whom are oncologists. The group reviews medical data and bases recommendations on effectiveness and risks involved.
I know several women who received positive mammograms in their 40’s and had their cancers successfully treated.
“All we are saying is, at age 40, a woman should make an appointment with her doctor and have a conversation about the benefits and harms of having a mammography now versus waiting to age 50,” said Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chair of the task force.
While roughly 15 percent of women in their 40s detect breast cancer through mammography, many other women experience false positives, anxiety, and unnecessary biopsies as a result of the test, according to data.
I suppose that the false positives are more distressing than the future undiagnosed actual cancers? You know, the ones that will kill a mother of young kids in the prime of her life? How much money will we save with this approach? How much money and how many deaths?
Actual cancer specialists do not agree with this approach:
“With its new recommendations, the [task force] is essentially telling women that mammography at age 40 to 49 saves lives; just not enough of them,” Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.
The organization says it looked at virtually the same data as the task force but came to a different conclusion. “Breast cancer is a serious health problem facing adult women, and mammography is part of our solution beginning at age 40 for average-risk women,” it says. It recommends annual exams beginning at that age.
Experts at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center also voiced concern and said they aren’t changing their screening protocol. “We disagree with their conclusions,” Dr. Therese Bevers said of the task force. “You have to screen more women. It’s the value we put on zero women dying.”
If I was in a better mood, I’d issue a Ya’ Think™ Award:
“Certainly mammography does pick up things at [age] 45 that would have been much more serious in five years,” said Dr. Anne Wallace, director of the University of California-San Diego Moores Breast Cancer Program. “What worries me is if insurance companies won’t allow women who want early detection in this age group to be screened.”
And this, Gentle Readers, is the bottom line:
Breast cancer is the most common cancer for women in the United States. This year, nearly 200,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
I have read in the British papers that routine screening for prostate cancer in men doesn’t happen there. We in the United States have much higher survival rates for both breast cancer and prostate cancer - temporarily. Let’s see what the health care fiasco does to change all of that.
- Aggie