US Panel: Breast Cancer Screenings Should Begin at 40
On Tuesday, the US Preventive Services Task Force issued draft guidance advising women with an average risk of breast cancer to begin receiving biennial screenings at age 40, a decade earlier than its previous recommendation of 50.
Facts
- On Tuesday, the US Preventive Services Task Force issued draft guidance advising women with an average risk of breast cancer to begin receiving biennial screenings at age 40, a decade earlier than its previous recommendation of 50.1
- All women and individuals assigned female at birth — who are not at high risk of breast cancer — had in 2016 been advised to decide individually in their 40s when to start getting screened.2
- This drastic change — which is expected to save nearly 20% more lives — comes as data from the Radiological Society of North America shows that the rate of metastatic breast cancer in women aged 25 to 39 has increased by nearly 32% since 2009.3
- The new recommendation is closer to that of the American Cancer Society, which states that women aged 40 to 44 should get biennial mammograms and those over 45 should receive annual screenings. The Task Force is seeking public comments on its draft guidance.4
- Though breast cancer is very treatable when caught early, it is the second leading cause of cancer death among US women, with the CDC reporting some 42K deaths annually.5
- One in eight women develop the disease during the course of their lives, with the median age for diagnosis across them being 62. Black women, however, are more likely to be diagnosed at earlier ages or with aggressive subtypes of the cancer.6
Sources: 1New York Post, 2The Hill, 3CBS, 4FOX News, 5NPR Online News, and 6USA Today.
Narratives
- Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by CNN. This draft recommendation is a step in the right direction in the fight against breast cancer, aligning the Task Force with the American Cancer Society in recognizing that the benefits of screening outweigh its harms. Yet, there is room for further improvement, as the introduction of annual mammograms could help younger women and Black women to find earlier stage and aggressive cancers.
- Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by PubMed Central. Though breast cancer screening has been promoted as life saving, it has disproportionately caused more harm than benefit by increasing mastectomies and over diagnosing healthy women, all while failing to catch cancer earlier. Despite seeming counterintuitive, avoiding mammograms reduces the risk of becoming a breast cancer patient by one third and protects people from unnecessary treatments like radiotherapy.
