Vitals Spotlight - We Give the Doctor an Exam

Dr. Diana Petitti (sci.asu.edu)

There are 192,000 new cases of breast cancer and about 40,000 deaths in the United States every year, reports the Wall Street Journal. Women in their 40’s account for at least a quarter of breast cancer diagnoses, 17% of breast cancer deaths, suffer from more aggressive cases and have a higher risk of death according to the Los Angeles Times.

Yet according to new guidelines released Monday by the United States Preventative Services Task Force, women do not need to start regular breast cancer screening until they reach the age of 50. The task force also recommended that these women only require mammograms every two years and that doctors should stop teaching women to examine their breasts on a regular basis.

Just seven years ago the task force recommended that women should have mammograms every one to two years once they turn 40. This influential group, appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services, provides guidelines for doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.

“No one is saying that women should not be screened in their 40’s,” said Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chair of the task force and a professor of biomedical informatics, whose work is followed closely by doctors and insurance companies.

“That change is really a change between doing it routinely and don’t do it routinely. Women 40 and older, should talk to their doctors and decide with them whether or not to put off screening for a few years.”

Dr. Petitti was more explicit about the issue of ‘breast self- examinations’. “Women should know it doesn’t work. Two large studies published since the last guidelines involving 200,000 women in China and more than 100,000 in Russia showed no benefits from breast cancer self examinations.”

mammograms (sedonaobserver.com)

According to Vitals.com, Dr. Petitti received her medical degree at Harvard University and completed her specialty training at the University Of Colorado School Of Medicine.

The new recommendations would not apply to women with risk factors.  Overall the report stated that the modest benefit of mammograms reduce the breast cancer rate by 15% and must be weighed against the harms, reports The New York Times.

The harms, which loom larger for women in their 40’s than women in their 50’s, are described as false positives that generate anxiety and unnecessary additional tests and biopsies. The harms are nearly cut in half when women begin screenings in their 50’s and have mammograms every other year instead of every year. But the benefits are almost unchanged.

READ MORE ABOUT DR. DIANA PETITTI