If you're a woman or a spouse or loved one of a woman -- and that likely covers most people we know -- you may be struggling with how to interpret some new guidelines on breast cancer screenings that were issued today by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. You're probably very surprised to read their recommendations to push back initial mammograms to age 50 and conduct follow-ups every two years.Thanks to the efforts of the American Cancer Society, Komen for the Cure, Avon, many other advocacy groups and even M. D. Anderson's own Public Education Office, it's likely that most women and their physicians would answer "40 years old" to the question: At what age should you get your first mammogram? Furthermore, we'd expect to hear "every year" in response to the question of how often to have this test.
Based on practices in our Cancer Prevention Center and the risk-based guidelines for breast cancer screenings, M. D. Anderson is standing by those recommendations.
If you're of average risk, M. D. Anderson recommends you get your first mammogram at age 40 and return every year after that for regular screenings. If you aren't sure how to assess your risk, we recommend setting up time with your physician.
"We believe the benefits of an annual mammogram outweigh the risks for women, starting at age 40," says Therese Bevers, M.D., professor and director of M. D. Anderson's Cancer Prevention Center.
M. D. Anderson has studied the effectiveness of breast cancer screening and M. D. Anderson faculty contributed to the modeling analyses used by the Preventive Services Task Force to make its recommendation.
Ongoing dialog and research on this topic are very important in the lives of many women. We'll assess these findings and others in the annual evaluation of our guidelines in March 2010.
The task force, and M. D. Anderson, are united in our emphasis on developing risk-based, specific breast cancer screening guidelines. We'll continue to seek evidence that benefits women by catching this disease in its earliest stages.
"Doctors need to have more discussion about the risks and limitations of breast cancer screening with patients so they can participate in decision-making," Bevers says. "There have been huge successes in teaching American women about the benefits of screening mammography, but women have not been educated about the limitations of screening -- which is why many women believe that there is no harm in screening and if one test is good, two tests are better and more frequent testing with both is the best."
Read more about this discussion on twitter hashtag - #mammogram40
http://tweetchat.com/room/mammogram40
Transcript from Houston Chronicle MedBlog Live Chat Event