UK Study Finds Lack of Net Benefit for Mammography

Another thing to consider when you are weak and think they have some idea of what they are talking about.

Remember how we are told to have mammograms performed?

Mammographic breast cancer screening could be doing more harm than good, according to a new analysis conducted in the United Kingdom that backs up the findings of a previous Cochrane review.

James Raftery, PhD, professor of health technology assessment, and Maria Chorozoglou, a research fellow at the Wessex Institute, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, reported their findings in an article published online December 8 in the British Medical Journal.

According to the researchers, the Forrest report, first published in 1986, suggested that screening would reduce the death rate from breast cancer by almost one third, with minimal harmful effects and at a low cost. However, a Cochrane review published in 2009 found that the benefits were not so apparent because of the risk for overtreatment.

"[F]or every 2000 women invited for screening throughout 10 years, one will have her life prolonged, and 10 healthy women, who would not have been diagnosed if there had not been screening, will be diagnosed as breast cancer patients and will be treated unnecessarily," the authors of the 2009 Cochrane report write.

I repeat.

Still think they have any idea what they are talking about?