Breast cancer screening a complex mix of benefits, risk -report

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A review of 50 years of studies on the risks and benefits of yearly mammograms has tied them to a 19 percent drop overall in breast cancer deaths, but whether a woman benefits depends on factors such as age and family history, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association is the latest attempt to sort out mixed messages about mammogram screening, once an annual chore whose merits have been questioned by some studies suggesting that mammograms save far fewer women than previously thought. "It would be easier for everyone if there was a clear, pre-specified pathway with a given risk profile, but we don't have that because our data is not perfect and everyone is different," Dr. Lydia Pace of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the study, told Reuters Health. "I wish that we had more certainty." Five years ago, U.S. women routinely started getting annual mammograms at age 40.



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