Claim: Mammograms Save Lives for Women in Their 40s, Study Says
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
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: 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: 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: 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: Mammography
text: of Obstetricians and Gynecologists encourage annual mammograms beginning at age 40. The National Cancer Institute encourages mammograms one to two years for women ages 40 to 49. In contrast, the American College of Physicians, a large internal medicine group, has recently encouraged individualized screening plans as opposed to wholesale biannual screening of women aged 40 to 49. In 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that screening of women ages 40 to 49 be based on individual risk factors, and that screening should not be routine in this age group. Their report says that the benefits of screenings before

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: 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: Daniel Kopans
text: Gina Kolata which questioned the value of screening mammography for those in the 40-50 age group, Dr. Kopans was a leading figure during a prolonged battle, arguing in favor of the benefits of mammography. By 1997, the National Cancer Institute had reversed course and once again supported screening for women in their 40s. However, 2009 United States Preventive Services Task Force guidelines no longer recommend routine screening in women 40 to 49. Kopans is author of the textbook "Breast Imaging". He practices radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Kopans attended Harvard

title: United States Preventive Services Task Force
text: The Task Force made no recommendation about routine mammography to screen asymptomatic women aged 40 to 49 years for breast cancer. Patients in this age group should be educated about the risks and benefits of screening, and the decision whether to screen or not should be based on the individual situation and preferences. The old advice was based on "weak" evidence for this age group. The new advice is based on improved scientific evidence about the benefits and harms associated with mammography and is consistent with recommendations by the World Health Organization and other major medical bodies. Their recommendation against

title: Breast cancer screening
text: Among women in their 60s, who have a somewhat higher rate of breast cancer, the proportion of positive outcomes to harms are better: Mammography is not generally considered as an effective screening technique for women at average or low risk of developing cancer who are less than 50 years old. For normal-risk women 40 to 49 years of age, the risks of mammography outweigh the benefits, and the US Preventive Services Task Force says that the evidence in favor of routine screening of women under the age of 50 is "weak". Part of the difficulty in interpreting mammograms in younger

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

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: Mammography
text: using ultrasound or MRI imaging. There is a body of evidence that clearly shows that there is over-diagnosis of cancer when women are screened. These cancers would never have affected these women in their lifetimes. An estimate of this over-diagnosis is 10 breast cancers diagnosed and unnecessarily treated per life saved when 2,000 women are screened for 10 years. While screening between ages 40 and 50 is still controversial, the preponderance of the evidence indicates that there is some small benefit in terms of early detection. Currently, the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology, and the American Congress

title: Elisa Rush Port
text: mechanisms of its drug resistance. Other recent work addresses the benefits of screening mammography. With collaborators, the work has shown that patients who undergo mammograms are less likely to require more aggressive surgical or medical treatments as a result of early detection. She has been a vocal critic of the current United States Preventive Services Task Force guideline that now classifies mammograms as optional for women between 40 and 49 years of age. According to Dr. Julie Margenthaler, a breast surgeon with the Washington University School of Medicine and Chair of the ASBrS Communication Committee, the controversy appears to be

title: Mammography
text: breast tissue is denser among younger women, making it difficult to detect tumors. For this reason, false negatives are twice as likely to occur in pre-menopausal mammograms (Prate). This is why the screening program in the UK does not start calling women for screening mammograms until age 50. The importance of these missed cancers is not clear, particularly if the woman is getting yearly mammograms. Research on a closely related situation has shown that small cancers that are not acted upon immediately, but are observed over periods of several years, will have good outcomes. A group of 3,184 women had

title: United States Preventive Services Task Force
text: routine, suspicion-less mammograms for younger women does not change the advice for screening women at above-average risk for developing breast cancer or for testing women who have a suspicious lump or any other symptoms that might be related to breast cancer. The change in the recommendation for younger women has been criticized by some physicians and cancer advocacy groups, such as Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society,<ref."Task force opposes routine mammograms for women age 40-49" - Danielle Dellorto, CNN Medical Producer</ref> and praised by physicians and medical organizations that support individualized and evidence-based medicine, such

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: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends (2016) mammography every two years between the ages of 50 and 74, concluding that "the benefit of screening mammography outweighs the harms by at least a moderate amount from age 50 to 74 years and is greatest for women in their 60s". The American College of Radiology and American Cancer Society recommend yearly screening mammography starting at age 40. The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (2012) and the European Cancer Observatory (2011) recommend mammography every 2 to 3 years between ages 50 and 69. These task force reports point out that in

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: United States Preventive Services Task Force
text: unchanged. The previous advice was for all women over the age of 40 to receive a mammogram every one to two years. The new advice is more detailed. For women between the ages of 50 and 74, they have recommended routine mammograms once every two years in the absence of symptoms. Most American women who are diagnosed with breast cancer are diagnosed after age 60. The USPSTF declared that there is insufficient evidence to make any statement about the use of mammograms in women over the age of 75, as very little research has been performed in this age group.