Claim: Mammograms Cut Risk of Breast Cancer Death by Half, Study Finds
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Breast cancer screening
text: Screening targeted towards women with above-average risk produces more benefit than screening of women at average or low risk for breast cancer. A 2013 Cochrane review estimated that mammography in women between 50 and 75 years old results in a relative decreased risk of death from breast cancer of 15% and an absolute risk reduction of 0.05%. However, when the analysis included only the least biased trials, women who had regular screening mammograms were just as likely to die from all causes, and just as likely to die specifically from breast cancer, as women who did not. The size of

title: Breast imaging
text: find an effect of mammography screening on total cancer mortality, including breast cancer, after 10 years. The authors of systematic review write: "If we assume that screening reduces breast cancer mortality by 15% and that overdiagnosis and overtreatment is at 30%, it means that for every 2000 women invited for screening throughout 10 years, one will avoid dying of breast cancer and 10 healthy women, who would not have been diagnosed if there had not been screening, will be treated unnecessarily. Furthermore, more than 200 women will experience important psychological distress including anxiety and uncertainty for years because of false

title: Mammography
text: was associated with a 8%-33% decrease in breast cancer mortality in different age groups, but that this decrease was not statistically significant at the age groups of 39-49 and 70-74. The same review found that mammography significantly decreased the risk of advanced cancer among women aged 50 and older by 38%, but among those aged 39 to 49 the risk reduction was a non significant 2%. The goal of any screening procedure is to examine a large population of patients and find the small number most likely to have a serious condition. These patients are then referred for further, usually

title: Mammography
text: addition to unnecessary surgery and anxiety, the risks of more frequent mammograms include a small but significant increase in breast cancer induced by radiation. Additionally, mammograms should not be performed with increased frequency in patients undergoing breast surgery, including breast enlargement, mastopexy, and breast reduction. The Cochrane Collaboration (2013) concluded after ten years that trials with adequate randomization did not find an effect of mammography screening on total cancer mortality, including breast cancer. The authors of this Cochrane review write: "If we assume that screening reduces breast cancer mortality by 15% and that overdiagnosis and over-treatment is at 30%, it

title: Mammography
text: reduction in mortality from all types of cancer from screening mammography. The Canadian Task Force found that for women ages 50 to 69, screening 720 women once every 2 to 3 years for 11 years would prevent 1 death from breast cancer. For women ages 40 to 49, 2,100 women would need to be screened at the same frequency and period to prevent a single death from breast cancer. Women whose breast cancer was detected by screening mammography before the appearance of a lump or other symptoms commonly assume that the mammogram "saved their lives". In practice, the vast majority

title: Cancer prevention
text: to be more than 1.7 million, with more than six-hundred thousand deaths. Factors such as breast size, reduced physical activity, obesity and overweight status, infertility and never having had children, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and genetics are risk factors for breast cancer. Mammograms are widely used to screen for breast cancer, and are recommended for women 50–74 years of age by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). However, the USPSTF recommended against mammographies for women 40–49 years old due to possibility of overdiagnosis. As of 2017, tobacco use, diet and nutrition, physical activity, obesity/overweight status, infectious agents, and chemical

title: Mammography
text: early cancers, even though not acted on immediately, were still reliably curable. The radiation exposure associated with mammography is a potential risk of screening, which appears to be greater in younger women. The largest study of radiation risk from mammography concluded that for women 40 years of age and older, the risk of radiation-induced breast cancer was minuscule, particularly compared with the potential benefit of mammographic screening, with a benefit-to-risk ratio of 48.5 lives saved for each life lost due to radiation exposure. Organizations such as the National Cancer Institute and United States Preventive Task Force take such risks into

title: Breast cancer
text: in breast cancer induced by radiation. The Cochrane collaboration (2013) states that the best quality evidence neither demonstrates a reduction in cancer specific, nor a reduction in all cause mortality from screening mammography. When less rigorous trials are added to the analysis there is a reduction in mortality due to breast cancer of 0.05% (a decrease of 1 in 2000 deaths from breast cancer over 10 years or a relative decrease of 15% from breast cancer). Screening over 10 years results in a 30% increase in rates of over-diagnosis and over-treatment (3 to 14 per 1000) and more than half

title: Mammography
text: women will undergo unnecessary breast cancer treatment. Additionally, 200 women will suffer from significant psychological stress due to false positive results. Newman points out that screening mammography does not reduce death overall, but causes significant harm by inflicting cancer scare and unnecessary surgical interventions. The Nordic Cochrane Collection notes that advances in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer may make breast cancer screening no longer effective in decreasing death from breast cancer, and therefore no longer recommend routine screening for healthy women as the risks might outweigh the benefits. Often women are quite distressed to be called back for a

title: Breast cancer screening
text: value of routine mammography in women at low or average risk is controversial. With unnecessary treatment of ten women for every one woman whose life was prolonged, the authors concluded that routine mammography may do more harm than good. If 1,000 women in their 50s are screened every year for ten years, the following outcomes are considered typical in the developed world: The outcomes are worse for women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, as they are far less likely to have a life-threatening breast cancer, and more likely to have dense breasts that make interpreting the mammogram more difficult.

title: Cancer survival rates
text: 100,000) and colorectal cancer (33.6 per 100,000), but lung cancer surpasses breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women. Researchers attribute the reduction in breast cancer mortality to improved treatment, including the increased use in adjuvant chemotherapy. The National Institute of Health (NIH) attributes the increase in the 5-year relative survival of prostate cancer (from 69% in the 1970s to 100% in 2006) to screening and diagnosis and due to the fact that men that participate in screening tend to be healthier and live longer than the average man and testing techniques that are able to detect

title: Canadian National Breast Screening Study
text: scientific community. In February 2014, the BMJ published more results from the study after following up on the participants for twenty-five years, with the authors concluding that "annual mammography in women aged 40-59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care when adjuvant therapy for breast cancer is freely available." The study also reported substantial overdiagnosis among women who had been screened, which the authors stated accounted for about 22% of the cancers detected by screening. H. Gilbert Welch, of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, has described the CNBSS

title: Mammography
text: of these women received no practical benefit from the mammogram. There are four categories of cancers found by mammography: Only 3% to 13% of breast cancers detected by screening mammography will fall into this last category. Clinical trial data suggests that 1 woman per 1,000 healthy women screened over 10 years falls into this category. Screening mammography produces no benefit to any of the remaining 87% to 97% of women. The probability of a woman falling into any of the above four categories varies with age. A 2016 review for the United States Preventive Services Task Force found that mammography

title: Breast cancer screening
text: detected with mammography would have disappeared spontaneously without treatment. They found that most of the earliest cell changes found by mammography screening ("carcinoma in situ") should be left alone because these changes would not have progressed into invasive cancer. The accidental harm from screening mammography has been underestimated. Women who have mammograms end up with increased surgeries, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other potentially procedures resulting from the over-detection of harmless lumps. Many women will experience important psychological distress for many months because of false positive findings. Half of suspicious findings will not become dangerous or will disappear over time. Consequently, the

title: Breast cancer
text: disease or stroke than from breast cancer. The emphasis on breast cancer screening may be harming women by subjecting them to unnecessary radiation, biopsies, and surgery. One-third of diagnosed breast cancers might recede on their own. Screening mammography efficiently finds non-life-threatening, asymptomatic breast cancers and pre-cancers, even while overlooking serious cancers. According to H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, research on screening mammography has taken the "brain-dead approach that says the best test is the one that finds the most cancers" rather than the one that finds dangerous cancers. Breast cancers occur during

title: Susan G. Komen for the Cure
text: to help people living with metastatic breast cancer find clinical trials. Many scientific reviews have criticized Komen for overpromoting mammography. They concluded that indiscriminate screening mammography for all middle-aged and older women, regardless of each woman's individual risk of developing breast cancer, results in overtreatment of some women whose cancer would never harm them. For every one woman whose life is saved by screening mammography, 250 to 500 women will be told that they might have breast cancer when they don't (false positives), 125 to 250 will have biopsies performed, and between two and ten women will receive unnecessary treatment.

title: Mammography
text: mammography as a screening tool for the detection of early breast cancer in otherwise healthy women without symptoms is controversial. Keen and Keen indicated that repeated mammography starting at age fifty saves about 1.8 lives over 15 years for every 1,000 women screened. This result has to be seen against the adverse effects of errors in diagnosis, over-treatment, and radiation exposure. The Cochrane analysis of screening indicates that it is "not clear whether screening does more good than harm". According to their analysis, 1 in 2,000 women will have her life prolonged by 10 years of screening, while 10 healthy

title: Breast cancer screening
text: effect might be less in real life compared with the results in randomized controlled trials due to factors such as increased self-selection rate among women concerned and increased effectiveness of adjuvant therapies. The Nordic Cochrane Collection (2012) reviews said that advances in diagnosis and treatment might make mammography screening less effective at saving lives today. They concluded that screening is “no longer effective” at preventing deaths and “it therefore no longer seems reasonable to attend” for breast cancer screening at any age, and warn of misleading information on the internet. The review also concluded that "half or more" of cancers

title: Breast cancer awareness
text: most deadly cancers, screening programs also find most non-life-threatening, asymptomatic breast cancers and pre-cancers, and miss some fast growing, aggressive, dangerous cancers. According to H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, "I'm certainly not asking anyone to stop getting mammograms. I am asking my profession to tell women the truth about overdiagnosis" . Welch said that research on screening mammography has taken the "brain-dead approach that says the best test is the one that finds the most cancers" rather than the one that finds dangerous cancers . Clinicians have responded that they are unwilling

title: Breast cancer screening
text: controversial as it may not reduce all-cause mortality and for causing harms through unnecessary treatments and medical procedures. Many national organizations recommend it for most older women. In the United States screening mammography women at normal risk for breast cancer, is only recommended every two years in women between the ages of 50 and 74. Several tools are available to help target breast cancer screening to older women with longer life expectancies. Similar imaging studies can be performed with magnetic resonance imaging but evidence is lacking. Earlier, more aggressive, and more frequent screening is recommended for women at particularly high