This week,  US Preventive Services Task Force panel of independent experts issued a guide line for cancer screening and prevention.  The guideline is based on real data and takes into account effectiveness of screening, radiation risks due to screening, and risk of being missed.

The recommendation has been approved and supported by experts in the field.  But then there are tons of people who are up-in-arms.  They believe that there should be more screening.

First, here are the new guideline which do not apply to high risk women.

• Women between the ages of 40 and 49 should not be routinely screened.
• Women between the ages of 50 and 74 should be screened every two years.
• Screenings are unnecessary for women 75 and older.
• Women should not be taught how to perform breast self-examinations.
• There is no additional benefit to clinical breast examination by doctors, nor are there added benefits to digital mammography or magnetic resonance imaging over film mammography.

Compared to the old guidelines:

• Women should start getting annual mammograms at age 40.
• Doctors should perform clinical breast examinations and teach breast self-examinations.

Panel reasons that  while screenings definitely reduce breast cancer mortality, they can also result in psychological harm, unnecessary tests and biopsies due to overdiagnosis and false-positive results. In contrast to a false positive, (the detection of a possible cancer which turns out not to be one) overdiagnosis is the detection of a cancer that would never have become clinically apparent, and is often followed by unnecessary overtreatment, which can be harmful to the patient.

False-positive results were more common for women aged 40 to 49 years, whereas overdiagnosis is a greater concern for women in the older age groups. Therefore, the benefit of screening for women 40 to 49 years was found to be small. For the 50 to 74 group, the biennial screening maintains almost all of the benefit of annual screening (81%) with almost half the number of false positives.

Some say “you won’t find cancer if you don’t look for it’  That is where the basic debate comes in.  You could be paranoid and keep on looking till the radiation causes more damage than the cancer could have.

Panel has taken a smart step to reduce the risk while maintaining the effectiveness.  They do say that high risk people should continue to get more regular check ups.  Those who are in low risk, they are the one who should avoid un-needed exposure.

They have segregated the population to low and high risk.  Their guidelines are for low risk women. 

Who are then complaining about it? Consumers?  They do not have the data but emotions.  Their comments are emotional and not factual.

Then others who have stake in are equiment makers, doctors, and radiologists.  The new guidelines reduces the business for all.  None of these people are cancer experts?   Yes, not even the doctors. They are expert in administering cures.  They are not researcher or cure developer.

All these people are going to lose significant amount of benefit.  May be to the order of 1/3.  So is this uproar because of greater good or just a business anxiety?

But they