Mammogram (Photo : Torin Halsey, AP)
The American Cancer Society had in 1992 recommended that women within the age of 35-39 should get a mammogram so as to help doctors compare other mammograms taken in later ages to determine the progress of breast cancer in women, but the agency is now singing another tune by saying women might as well wait till age 50 before doing mammograms because of problems associated with frequent mammograms.
Most other health groups advocate for age 40 for women mammograms, because delaying mammograms makes breast cancer more difficult to treat and makes a patient less likely to survive. But now the American Cancer Society is recommending fewer mammograms, saying women aged 45 could be screened every year while those aged 55 should be screened every two years.
In a Tuesday study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association or JAMA, the cancer society clarified that breast cancer cells grow faster in young women but at a slower rate in women past the age of menopause, making it safe for them to be checked less often - every other year.
The new guidelines released Tuesday establishes the point that mammograms can be good and also bad, and that the fewer they are done the better - the chief cancer control officer at the American Cancer Society, Richard Wender agrees with this.
"The biggest evolution has been not in the American Cancer Society, but in the science of cancer screening and the evolution of health care in general," Wender noted.
To the cancer society, mammograms are now better scheduled to the changing risks a woman faces as she ages and the biology of breast cancer. The society chose age 45 as the best time to start mammograms because the risks of breast cancer starts to rise at this time, and doing the screening before this age would ultimately harm the woman rather than help her, not mentioning the possibility of "false positives" that lead to unnecessary tests and biopsies.
"We're moving to an era where people are recognizing the limitations of screening tests," said Nancy Keating, a primary care physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "For many years, we convinced everybody, including doctors, that mammograms are the best tests and everyone has to have one. But now we're acknowledging that the benefits are modest and the harms are real."
Wender however sounded that the age 45 mammogram recommendation only applies to women with an average risk of breast cancer and not to women with family history or genetic mutations for the disease; while women under 45 years of age can go on getting mammograms if they feel they should continue while those above 55 can also get screened annually if they so desire it.
