Are the benefits of mammograms worth it?
Doctors may have oversold the benefits of mammograms and underplayed its risks, which has left many women unable to make an informed decision about whether or not to have regular breast cancer screenings beginning at age 40. That troubling finding is based on the latest review of research conducted by Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers, which concluded that mammograms decrease a woman’s risk of dying from breast cancer by a modest 19 percent.
What are the benefits of mammograms?
Women in their 40s had just a 15 percent reduction in their breast cancer death risk compared to a 32 percent reduction for older women in their 60s who are far more likely to get breast cancer than younger women, according to the study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. None of the trials could determine whether mammograms reduced a woman’s risk of dying from any cause: Certain chemotherapy drugs, for example, damage the heart muscle and raise the risk of dying from heart disease.
From: www.bostonglobe.com
