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The new findings on mammograms run counter to the advice long given to women.
New York women and their doctors were left shaking their heads Wednesday, a day after the publication of an earthshaking study concluding that mammograms do not reduce a woman’s chance of dying of breast cancer.
Bucking two generations of conventional wisdom, the study, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that women ages 40 to 59 who had annual mammograms saw no benefit up to 25 years later.
And thousands of women are undergoing painful cancer treatment after a mammogram, even though the disease would not cause symptoms during their lifetime, according to the report.
The bombshell left women — survivors of cancer and those who have not been diagnosed — confused and fearful.
“They keep doing different studies, and it becomes confusing,” says Ivis Febus-Sampayo, 58, a Manhattanite who had breast cancer twice, in both cases, with mammograms failing to detect it.
Eventually, Febus-Sampayo had months of chemotherapy, an ordeal that she feels might have been avoided had the breast scan actually worked.
Still, she supports mammograms as part of her work as a cancer fighter with the nonprofit group Share. “They’re the best we have today,” she says, though she quickly admits: Mammograms are not the Holy Grail.”
The latest study backs earlier findings. In 2000, a British review of 500,000 women showed that one of every 1,000 women who got mammograms was treated and saved — while six of every 1,000 died. “Screening for breast cancer with mammography is unjustified,” that study concluded.
Doctors, who have routinely ordered mammograms, are similarly confused by the latest findings.
“It puzzles me why we are paying so much attention to this one study [when] several others show a benefit,” says Dr. Carol Lee, a diagnostic radiologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Says Lee, “Mammography is not perfect, it doesn’t find all cancers, it finds some cancers that may never have gone on to kill the woman — but should we just stop looking?”
Indeed, for decades, public policy in the United States has been simple: You are female. You are over 40. You must get a mammogram.
Breast cancer deaths are down 30% since 1980, studies show, but it’s unclear if mammograms are catching cancers early enough for treatment or if the treatment itself is simply much better. Costs associated with cancer detection and treatment keep going up. Now this latest study suggests that the mammograms aren’t even worth it.
A call to the city Health Department, which promotes mammograms in public service ads, was not returned, so it is unclear if the new study will cause a shift in its policy.
But it is clear that a study — even one following up on a similar report — isn’t going to change minds overnight.
Take Mary Kelly Brown, a 74-year-old from Jackson Heights, who started getting mammograms when she turned 40 — and was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 60. She underwent a mastectomy.
“I’m a prime pro-mammogram candidate for women,” says Brown. “It saved my life.”
<h4 class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder"/> <h4 class="caption" itemprop="description">Dr. Carol Lee of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center says mammograms are still useful, even if they're not a perfect way to screen for breast cancer.
THE MAMMOGRAM STUDY BY THE NUMBERS
A new study suggests that mammograms do not reduce the breast cancer death rate.
89,835: Women in the study
22: The percent of cancers detected by mammography that were treated but would not have caused symptoms.
0.011: Cancer death rate for women in the study who got mammograms.
0.011: Cancer death rate for women in the study who did not get mammograms.
37 million: Number of mammograms done every year in the U.S.
$3.7 billion: The cost of those mammograms.