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More mammograms mean more problems for older women, study finds
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Los Angeles Times


Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2013
Posted: February 25th, 2013
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-too-many-m...

The American Cancer Society advises all women over 40 to get a mammogram once a year to screen for signs of breast cancer. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a panel of experts that advises the federal government on health matters, says most women need to get mammograms only once every two years, and only when theyre between the ages of 50 and 74. Whos right? A new study comes down on the side of the task force. Researchers examined records of about 140,000 women ages 66 to 89 who had mammograms between 1999 and 2006. Some of the women had mammograms every year, and some of them had them every other year. It turned out that having annual mammograms did not reduce womens risk of being diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer, as might have been expected. When all the numbers were crunched, the proportion [of women] with adverse tumor characteristics was similar among annual and biennial screeners, the researchers wrote in a study published [in] the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. But they did find harm. The more times that women were screened, the greater their odds of getting a false positive reading on a mammogram. For example, among women between the ages of 66 and 74 who already had health problems, 48% of those who had annual mammograms had at least one false-positive reading during a 10-year period. But among those who were screened every other year, only 29% had a false-positive result.

Note: You can read a summary of the study online here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on health issues, click here.


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