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Mammograms
Save Twice
As Many Lives As Thought
DANA
POINT (Reuters Health) - Screening mammography reduces breast
cancer deaths by 63%, double the effect usually cited, according
to a study presented here Monday at the American Cancer Society
Science Writers Seminar.
The new figures
strengthen the case for comprehensive mammography screening, according
to Dr. Robert Smith, of the American Cancer Society.
``We have
now a truer estimate, for women and providers, of the benefit
of participating in screening; and that estimate is roughly twice
what we conventionally tell women and providers in health education
materials,'' Smith said.
In the study,
the researchers analyzed data collected over a 29-year period
in two counties in Sweden that participated in screening mammography
studies in the 1970s and 1980s.
Breast cancer
deaths in women aged 40 to 69 dropped 50% in the period after
1987, when routine mammography screening was offered to all women,
compared with the period prior to 1978, when mammography trials
were begun.
However, Smith
noted that the drop includes women who were asked but declined
to be screened.
``When we
looked at the mortality reduction of women who actually participated
in screening, we observed a 63% mortality reduction in the third
period compared to the first period; and we saw no significant
change in breast cancer mortality in unscreened women,'' he said.
The drop in
mortality is due in part to better treatments for breast cancer,
but the new study does emphasize the importance of mammograms,
according to Dr. Marilyn Leitch, of The University of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center at Dallas, who was not involved with this study.
``The contribution
of treatment advances is there; it is not to say it doesn't contribute,
but I think that a large part of it is related to the screening
benefit,'' she said.
Smith and
colleagues estimate that about two-thirds of the drop in mortality
is due to screening and the rest due to improvements in therapy
and increased awareness.
``I think
it's a rather unproductive debate as to how much, with any precision,
screening or treatment contributes to mortality reductions. What
we do know is that any surgeon-oncologist will tell you that they'd
much rather treat a smaller tumor than a larger one,'' he said.
Reference
Source 90
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