Scientific Dispute Raises Question: Do Mammograms Really Save Lives?

2002 FEB 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- It's advice that's almost become gospel: getting a mammogram could save your life.

Now, yet again, some scientists are challenging whether that's true. And the controversy is serious enough that even the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) is reviewing its guidelines.

For now, the advice hasn't changed. Women should begin getting mammograms in their 40s, stressed Dr. Peter Greenwald, the NCI's cancer prevention chief. That advice is based on studies done in the 1970s and 1980s that concluded mammograms can cut deaths from breast cancer by 30%.

But now two Danish scientists have reanalyzed those studies and concluded they had so many flaws in the way they were conducted that it's impossible to say whether mammograms really reduce deaths. Those analyses are causing a scientific uproar, and many specialists do not accept them.

"The bulk of the evidence at this point continues to endorse mammography as a useful tool in potentially reducing one's risk," said Dr. Robert Young, president of the American Cancer Society.

Still, the controversy is about to get more of a consumer airing. Advisers to the NCI have taken up the issue, and agreed with the Danes. This group, called the PDQ editorial board, is responsible for updating scientific information on the government's main cancer Internet site, and may add to the site by spring the warning that mammography's lifesaving promise is in doubt.

"That translates into, 'You should not make the decision lightly,'" said Donald Berry of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, a panel member who is helping draft the opinion. "It is something that a woman can reasonably choose not to do and not feel that she's harming her health."