Is the tide turning against breast screening?

Herein I argue that mammographic screening has not delivered on its fundamental premise: to reduce the incidence of advanced breast cancer. Indeed, achieving this goal is required if screening is to reduce breast cancer mortality or mastectomy use. Rather, screening has caused substantial increases...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBreast cancer research : BCR Vol. 14; no. 4; p. 107
Main Author Jørgensen, Karsten
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England BioMed Central Ltd 13.07.2012
BioMed Central
Subjects
Breast Neoplasms - diagnosis
Breast Neoplasms - mortality
Early Detection of Cancer - methods
Female
Humans
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Summary:Herein I argue that mammographic screening has not delivered on its fundamental premise: to reduce the incidence of advanced breast cancer. Indeed, achieving this goal is required if screening is to reduce breast cancer mortality or mastectomy use. Rather, screening has caused substantial increases in the incidence of in situ and early invasive cancers. Moreover, evidence indicates that these screen-detected cancers are unlikely to be cases that were 'caught early', but instead represent women who would not have been diagnosed in the absence of screening and who, as a result, have received harmful, unnecessary treatment. If true, these observations raise the specter that screening creates breast cancer patients and that this practice carries little or no benefit.
Bibliography:SourceType-Other Sources-1
content type line 63
ObjectType-Editorial-2
ObjectType-Commentary-1
ISSN:1465-542X
1465-5411
1465-542X
DOI:10.1186/bcr3212