In recent years, there has been a real reduction in the mortality rate associated with breast cancer.  Since 1990, the mortality rate decreased by 2.3% for all women across the United States and by 3.3% for women between 40 and 50 years of age.  Medical experts attribute most of these decreases to improved treatment methods and the use of early detection techniques – specifically mammograms.  “There is no question about it - diagnosing breast cancer early saves lives,” says Dr. Emily Sedgwick, director of breast imaging at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “Mammograms have helped us reduce the number of deaths, allowing us to detect at a stage where the cancer is more treatable.”

 

I couldn’t agree more.

 

That’s why I was so appalled late last year by the recommendations of a medical task force that said women between the ages of 40 and 49 should not have routine mammograms, women over the age of 50 should have a mammogram only every two years, and that women should not be taught to do regular self-exams.

 

The reason given for these recommendations was that the physical and psychological harms – unnecessary tests and general inconvenience and stress caused by false-positives -- associated with breast cancer screening techniques outweigh any marginal benefits for women under 50.

 

Happily, women in America are suspicious of the motives for this advice that says wait.  A Gallup poll taken last year found 76 percent of women between the ages of 35 and 75 attributed the recommendation to a desire to encourage medical cost savings.

 

It may be a well-placed fear in a country where the medical industry is about to be placed under the heavy hand of the government.  It has happened elsewhere in the world, and people find themselves being forced to wait what must seem like an eternity between their initial doctor visit and getting to see a specialist to confirm a diagnosis and begin a course of treatment.

A 2008 study by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation seeking to improve health care, found that Americans get quicker service than do patients in other countries that include Australia, France, Canada and the United Kingdom.

 

In the United States, 74 percent of patients see a specialist in fewer than four weeks, and 10 percent have to wait at least two months. In the U.K., for instance, those figures are 42 percent seeing the specialist in fewer than four weeks and 33 percent waiting two months or more.  If you’re in a hurry to see the specialist, America is as good as it gets.

 

In a country where more than 200,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 40,000 women will lose their lives to this disease we certainly do not need to take a step back from what’s working.  So, I hope you’ll use this month as a time to ask your doctor for advice on mammograms.  Common sense says it’s best to find things out early and then to get treated as quickly as possible.