By James Gallagher
26 October 2011 Last updated at 00:01
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15444879
The evidence for breast cancer screening in the UK is being reviewed amid controversy about the measure’s effectiveness.
The NHS says screening saves lives, but other researchers have argued that it may cause more harm than good.
The national cancer director for England, Prof Mike Richards, announced in the British Medical Journal that he will lead a review.
He said he was taking the “current controversy very seriously”.
When it comes to cancer treatment, earlier is better. Screening programmes for a range of cancers help doctors make a diagnosis sooner. But they also run the risk of false positives, diagnosing someone with cancer when they are healthy.
Life saving
Screening was introduced for breast cancer in 1988 in the UK and now offers tests to women, over the age of 50, every three years.
In 2002, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer estimated that screening reduced deaths from breast cancer by about 35%.
The NHS says 1,400 lives are saved through screening in England alone.
However, the evidence has been questioned.
A review of clinical trials involving a total of 600,000 women concluded it was “not clear whether screening does more good than harm”.
It said that for every 2,000 women screened in a 10-year period: one life would be saved, 10 healthy women would have unnecessary treatment and at least 200 women would face psychological distress for many months because of false positive results.
The authors of that research labelled the NHS Breast Screening Programme’s advice “seriously misleading”.
Exchange
Professor of complex obstetrics at King’s College London, Susan Bewley, has turned down screening.
In a letter to Prof Richards last month, she said: “The distress of overdiagnosis and decision making when finding lesions that might, or might not, be cancer that might, or might not, require mutilating surgery is increasingly being exposed.”
In response, Prof Richards said research suggested that up to two and a half lives were saved for every over-diagnosed case.
He added that he would lead a review of the evidence to settle the ongoing controversy.
“Should the independent review conclude that the balance of harms outweighs the benefits of breast screening, I will have no hesitation in referring the findings to the UK National Screening Committee and then ministers.
Mammograms can identify tumours before they would be picked up
“I am fully committed to the public being given information in a format… that enables them to make truly informed choices.”
Prof Julietta Patnick, director of the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes, welcomed the review: “The NHS Breast Screening Programme has always been based on the best and latest evidence.
“Where new information has suggested them, a number of changes have been made to the Programme, for example extending the screening age range and using digital mammography.”
The review will be led jointly by Prof Richards and Cancer Research UK.
The director of health information at the charity, Sara Hiom, said: “Women need more accurate, evidence-based and clear information to be able to make an informed choice about breast screening.
“The decision whether to be screened is a personal one, but that decision should be made with all of the potential harms and benefits fully explained.”
Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s chief executive Chris Askew said: “Breast screening is vital as it can detect breast cancer at the earliest possible stages when no other symptoms are obvious.
“The earlier breast cancer is picked up the better for the one in eight women who are diagnosed every year with this disease, as treatment options are more likely to be less aggressive and have successful outcomes.”
I don’t see any many of the facts about radiation hitting the breasts each time you have a mammogram. Each time you zap a breast with radiation you’re increasing your chance of finding a tumor the next year you undergo this quackery by The Worshipful Company of Apothecaries and The Worshipful Company of Barbers feasting off the Cancer boom thanks to their cancer viruses both aerosolized and in vaccines such as SV40. Also thank The Worshipful Company of Fuellers and their nuclear incidents and The Worshipful Company of World Traders and their Chemicals. Cancer went as bad as one in three since Chernobyl, now since Fukushima it will be two in three as planned and spoke about as a statistic a few years ago planned from 2010 onwards. Just the same as how they know alzheimers is going to skyrocket in the next forty years. How? All the aluminium they’re placing in the atmosphere via aircraft and the Open Skies Treaty and all thanks to the invention of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California controlled by The Worshipful Company of Fuellers. You see zero mention about how delicate and sensitive the breasts and testicles are to radiation and yet they place breasts all day long in radiation machines like meat in a sealing machine for war*wart. Remember feminines should be consuming adequate dietary levels of iodine from Bladderwrack, Kelp, Eggs, seaweeds and other foods containing this element. The breasts need an ample supply similar to the thyroid but the thyroid will always win out over the breasts as its the most vital in need of the two. If a feminine has correct iodine levels then she will find it hard to have breast cancer or any cancer and especially if the Spleen function is working correctly thus giving a quality pancreatic functioning.
-=The Unhived Mind