Re:Half of women will get a false positive 3D mammogram, stu...
by gms7777 on Friday March 25, 2022 @02:28PM
(#30805545)
Just to expand/add nuance to your comment about controversy:
It's pretty uncontroversial that cancer screening for women above 50 years old or women with high risk (e.g. familial or genetic evidence or risk, history of cancer/treatment) is a net beneficial procedure.
For asymptomatic, low-risk women aged 40-49, the recommendations are a bit more mixed. While there is some evidence that overall mortality does improve, there are also considerable harms (physical, emotional, financial) associated with false positives and "overdiagnosis" (that is, identifying and treating low-grade non-invasive lesions that are unlikely to progress to breast cancer).
It's pretty uncontroversial that cancer screening for women above 50 years old or women with high risk (e.g. familial or genetic evidence or risk, history of cancer/treatment) is a net beneficial procedure.
For asymptomatic, low-risk women aged 40-49, the recommendations are a bit more mixed. While there is some evidence that overall mortality does improve, there are also considerable harms (physical, emotional, financial) associated with false positives and "overdiagnosis" (that is, identifying and treating low-grade non-invasive lesions that are unlikely to progress to breast cancer).