United States: According to recent research, nearly 40 percent of women in their 40s would delay starting regular breast cancer screening after learning about its potential downsides.
More about the finding
The outcomes of the new national survey were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The US Preventive Services Task Force did finalize the recommendations, which included that the women who start undergoing mammography every other year must begin at the age of forty instead of fifty.
How was the survey conducted?
The study included nearly 500 women aged 39 to 49 without a history of breast cancer or gene mutations.
According to Laura D. Scherer, PhD, the lead author and who was working with the University of Colorado School of Medicine and colleagues, “There are women in their 40s who would prefer to have mammography at an older age, especially after being informed of the benefits and harms of screening,” as radiologybusiness.com reported.
“Women who wanted to delay screening were at lower breast cancer risk than women who wanted screening at their current age. Many found information about the” benefits and harms of mammography surprising,” she continued.
What more has the survey revealed?
Before viewing the decision aid, 27 percent of participants chose to delay screening compared to their current age. This figure rose to 38.5 percent after viewing the aid, which detailed overdiagnosis risks (12% to 22% of all screening-detected cancers).
The percentage of women who never wanted mammography remained steady, at 5.4 percent before and 4.3 percent after viewing the decision aid.
Nearly 37.4 percent of participants found information about overdiagnosis surprising, 27.7 percent found potential false-positives surprising, and 22.9 percent were surprised by the benefits of screening.
According to the authors, “These data suggest that many people who want to delay screening are considering the evidence and deciding that, for them, the harms outweigh the benefits at their current age.”