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Local docs still back early tests Wait until 50 for a mammogram? Local doctors don't like the idea Date published: 11/22/2009
BY JIM HALL Dr. Lisa Sarber's breast cancer was discovered through a routine mammogram at age 48. So the Fredericksburg internist was upset last week when she heard that a federal advisory panel had recommended that most women delay routine mammography until age 50. "If we followed those recommendations, I'd probably be dead now," Sarber said. Sarber was not alone among Fredericksburg doctors in questioning Monday's recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Five others doctors interviewed after the release of the panel's report said they were puzzled, even angered, by the findings, and would continue to recommend that their patients begin annual breast screenings at age 40. "I'm sticking with the current recommendations," said Dr. D. Kay Blanchard, a Fredericksburg surgeon and breast cancer specialist. "It would be a real crime to wait until age 50 to start these screening mammograms." Dr. Lea Shorter, a Stafford County obstetrician/gynecologist, described the panel's proposal as "infuriating." Asked if she would continue to recommend earlier testing, Shorter replied, "Absolutely." SCARY BUT BENEFICIAL Doctors said they are reluctant to accept the panel's recommendations because they've treated women like Sarber who benefited from early screening. Sarber said she felt fine, with no noticeable breast lumps, when she went for her annual mammogram three years ago. However, the image had tiny specks on it. "It looked to me like somebody had sprinkled glitter on my X-ray," she said. Sarber went for more testing and discovered that she had breast cancer. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation followed. Since then she has done well. "They caught it very early," she said. "I have a good chance of being cured and never seeing this again." The task force acknowledged the benefits of routine mammography for women 40 to 49, including a 15 percent reduction in mortality. Yet when thousands of women are studied, the benefits do not outweigh the harm, the group concluded. "Mammography screening at any age is a tradeoff of a continuum of benefits and harms," the panel said. Those risks include the unnecessary testing of people who later learn that they don't have cancer, and the pain and anxiety caused by those extra procedures. For example, if a woman's mammogram reveals an abnormal area in her breast, she might have a second mammogram and perhaps a biopsy to examine the suspicious tissue.
Read more stories about Fredericksburg Date published: 11/22/2009
doctors are probably more competent to evaluate the medical literature & make recommendatins about screening services than politicians of any persuasion. Therefore, before giving credence to someone challenging those recommendations, it is necessary to know their level of medical expertise; their political allegiance is irrelevent.
Does anyone else think it is coincidential that this "reform" on what has been the mantra of all for women occurs right when healthcare "reform" will land it right into the hands of the federal government? Are we just idiots?
both my mother and my wife were diagnosed with BC before age 50. Wife woulda found hers sooner, but she missed a screening.
Do you really think it takes a medical degree to figure out that it's better to consult a doctor than a socialist, left-wing, liberal politician for appropriate and effective cancer prevention practices? That's called the "authority of common sense." I SHUDDER to think what will happen if this country is stupid enough to allow Congress to put our very lives in the hands of government bureaucrats.
You are an Oncologist, an Oncological Surgeon, an epidemiologist, a statistician, a medical economist, a cancer research scientist? If you also don't mind, your academic credentials: you write as one with authority.
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