Researcher: Mammography Saves Lives.

2002 FEB 21 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A team from Cornell Medical Center has taken a fresh look at data that caused some investigators to doubt that mammography saves lives, and has concluded that there is a significant benefit over the long term.

"Screening does not have an immediate effect; the deaths that get to be prevented by screening are in the future, years away," said Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical Center, whose team published its findings in the British medical journal the Lancet.

The report is the latest contribution to a heated debate on the value of mammography in preventing breast cancer deaths - and the efficacy of cancer detection in general.

Ten U.S. medical groups, including the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times January 31, 2002, supporting mammography while conceding the limitations "and even some flaws" in existing studies.

"Early breast cancer detection means a greater chance for successful treatment and a greater range of treatment options," the advertisement said.

"We have grave concerns that these public debates have already begun to erode the confidence in mammography that has been built up over the past two decades."

Henschke's team reviewed data from a study published in the British Medical Journal in 1988, based on data from Malmoe, Sweden.