Breast cancer screening ‘no better than exam’
- From: News Corp Australia Network
- February 12, 2014
BREAST screening in women aged between 40 and 59 is no better than a physical examination in saving lives from breast cancer, a controversial new study has found.
And more than one in five of the cancers detected by the screening are harmless and will not cause symptoms or death in a patient’s lifetime.
However, the study did find that the 25-year survival of women with breast cancer diagnosed by mammography was superior to that of women who used only physical examinations (70.6 per cent versus 62 per cent).
The 25-year study of more than 89,000 women in Canada has raised questions about whether the public funding for breast screening in Australia is money well-spent.
Each year around 1.3 million Australian women have a mammogram to check for breast cancer.
Our program targets women aged 50 to 74 for a biannual mammogram but around 14.3 per cent of women aged 40-49 also take part in the program.
Typically just over half the Australian women eligible for the free screens take them up.
However, news that actress Angelina Jolie had her breasts removed to prevent the risk of genetic breast cancer caused a surge in screening in Australia last year.
The Canadian study, published in the British Medical Journal, involved women who were randomly assigned to receive either annual mammography screening or a one-off physical examination followed by usual care.
It found that 3,250 women who had an annual mammography were diagnosed with breast cancer.
This compared to the 3,133 women in the control arm of the study diagnosed with breast cancer as a result of a physical examination or usual care.
Five-hundred of the women whose breast cancer was diagnosed as a result of a mammogram died with breast cancer.
This compared with the 505 deaths among women receiving physical examinations.
“Annual mammography in women aged 40 to 59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care,” the study says.
The cancers discovered using mammograms were smaller than those found in the women who were receiving only physical examinations.
The study concluded that more than one in five of these cancers were over diagnosed, ie. they would not have harmed the woman in her lifetime.
Information on the BreastScreen Australia website reveals that for every 1,000 Australian women aged 50-74 who have biannual mammograms around eight cancers that would not have become life threatening will be found.
However, the group says for every 1,000 women screened eight deaths from breast cancer will be prevented.
The cancers detected through BreastScreen are smaller and are treated earlier. The women with the cancer are less likely to have a mastectomy than those whose cancer is detected outside BreastScreen.