Study: Mammograms offer limited benefit
Breast cancer survival rates largely attributed elsewhere
LOS ANGELES – Mammograms don’t help women over 50 as much as has been believed, new research suggests.
Only a third of the reduced risk of death credited to breast cancer screening is actually deserved – the rest is due to better treatment and greater awareness of the disease, a large study in Norway found.
The research, published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, is the latest to show that the benefits of mammography are limited.
“It’s not the great lifesaver that people think it is. It’s not a magic bullet,” said Georgetown University researcher Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt, who was not involved in the study.
Mandelblatt headed six teams that helped shape the new mammogram guidelines issued last year by an influential government task force. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded that women at average risk for breast cancer don’t need mammograms in their 40s and should get one just every two years starting at 50.
The World Health Organization estimates that mammograms reduce the breast cancer death rate by 25 percent in women over 50. Other groups put the figure at 15 to 23 percent.
The latest study found that while mammograms cut the risk of dying, the benefit was disappointingly low. Women who were screened had a 10 percent lower risk of death from breast cancer, but only a third of that reduction was due to screening itself.