I think that all the pink we see for breast cancer treatment and research t is really impressive. It also has done a lot of good bringing in tons of money to find a cure, etc. It also, dare I say, has done some harm as well. With every NFL football player wearing pink to almost every other celebrity doing a PSA, we have become so aware of this disease that we are afraid to listen to new research and guidelines. For example, the recommendations by the USPSTF (United States Preventive Services Task Force) had recommended mammograms to start at age 50. It saved money and did not affect life expectancy. The breast cancer advocates went crazy; so much so that the government refused to follow these guidelines. Now a
new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine supports getting mammograms every other year instead of annually. They found that more than 60 percent of women who get tested each year for a decade will be called back at least once for extra tests that turn out NOT to show breast cancer. Screening every other year drops the false positives to 42 percent without a risk of missing a new cancer. This would save hundreds of millions of healthcare dollars if we make this change. Alas, no will touch this. Get ready for the "push back" by the breast cancer advocates in the next few days. One of those groups, by the way, will be the radiologists who read those mammograms. Just saying.
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