Share:
Breast cancer benefit from mammography screening according to study weak
Pros and cons have been controversial for a long time
Breast cancer is the highest mortality rate among women in Germany. Every year, around 17,500 people die of it and around 70,000 fall ill each year. According to the German Society of Senology (DGS), around 80 percent of ill women today can be successfully treated. It depends a lot on an early diagnosis. Since 2002, women in this country have the opportunity to participate in the mammography screening for free.
The benefit is hardly verifiable. Image: Sven Bähren - fotolia The investigation, which is carried out on special X-ray equipment, was for years considered the ultimate in breast cancer screening. But for years the controversy surrounding the pros and cons of the screening program has been controversial. For example, while the cooperation community mammography drew a positive prognosis by mammography screening last year, German politicians demanded a reassessment of mammography. On the one hand, it is emphasized that early diagnosis can save lives through the investigation. But on the other hand, it often comes to over-diagnosis, the women even hurt in the end. Two new studies with health data from the US and Sweden are now raising doubts about the screenings.
The more investigations, the more cancer cases discovered
As reported by The World Online, one study was chaired by Robert Wilson, a professor of physics at Harvard University who is concerned with the calculation and analysis of risks. His team estimated that 16 million women aged 40 or over in 2000 lived in 547 counties in the United States. It was pointed out that in some of the counties the mammography screening was more thorough than in others. The researchers looked at the number of breast cancer cases and examined how many women had died of this cancer within ten years. They found that the more women were examined in a county, the more breast cancers were detected. However, it was also found that no more or fewer patients died of breast cancer than in regions where fewer women went to mammography.
Numbers have come together through "unconventional statistical methods"
According to the scientists, the reason for this is "widespread overdiagnosis". Many of the small tumors may never have caused problems, as they would not have grown or even regressed. In a second analysis, researchers from the United Kingdom and France recalculated the data from five mammographic studies from Sweden. These investigations were made between 1977 and 1996 and, according to the information provided, have so far been evidence of the great value of the screening. According to Swedish studies, regular mammograms for all could result in 20 percent fewer women dying from breast cancer. But according to the scientists, who had re-committed the data, "unconventional statistical methods" would have led to this number. For example, breast cancer deaths from women in the control groups of the studies - that is, from patients who did not undergo any screening - were also counted after the end of the study period.
Wait and watch
In addition, the women in the control groups did not know that they were taking part in a study. Only their data was evaluated. In contrast to the actual subjects, they received no instructions for the self-examination of their breasts and were not regularly examined. This probably distorted results. Nevertheless, the researchers came to the conclusion after the recalculation that mammography screenings can reduce the number of breast cancer deaths, but not as strong as previously thought. Professor Wilson and his colleagues also do not fully discourage mammography programs. So it makes sense to use the method to investigate women who have a high risk of breast cancer. Doctors should sometimes not intervene immediately if they notice a small tumor. Rather, the motto of the so-called "watchful waiting", so to wait and watch. (Ad)