Screening reduces breast cancer mortality

Screening reduces breast cancer mortality

Research sponsored by the National Cancer Institute has revealed that screening tests have lead to a significant fall in the number of deaths caused in women due to breast cancer.

According to the findings, screening in the US had brought down the deaths occurring from breast cancer by 7 percent to 23 percent. Similarly, chemotherapy and hormone therapy like tamoxifen reduced the rate by 12 percent to 21 percent. Together, screening and many other therapies have cut the mortality figures by 25 percent to 38 percent. Further, the arrival of better, improved drugs to treat this dreaded ailment has also aided in bringing down the death rate.

Dr. Russell Harris, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina and a member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, says the revelation should make women more confident about screening.

Ironically, Harris himself and a few others had warned women earlier that prior to undergoing the screen test they should be aware of its hazards like false positives and tumors formed due to the screening test.

This research was undertaken after it was learnt that the breast cancer death rate has fallen down in a big way, by 24 percent in the period 1999-2000.

Sponsors

It was believed that mammograms and the modern, powerful drugs available was the reason, and the study has done enough to prove it.

While both the above mentioned aspects were analysed in the trials, researchers were not sure what happened when women did not pay heed to medical advice and doctors too did not perform tests properly or prescribed some inaccurate drugs.

Thus many of the researchers had an argument that if screening tests were not conducted in the proper manner, as they were done in the clinical trials conducted by them, the results wouldn't be as effective.

So despite the findings, the question mark over the efficiency of mammograms continues as cancer researchers fail to arrive on a consensus on the issue.

It is learnt that over 80 percent of women above 40 now get mammograms. The Canadian Cancer Society strongly recommends that women in the age group of 50-69 must have a mammogram every two years while younger females (40-49) should make it a point of conversing with their doctors regarding the dangers of breast cancer.

Based on seven statistical analysis and involving 43 researchers, the findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.