Is breast cancer screening in danger of overdiagnosing the disease in women who might otherwise not have developed life threatening symptoms?
A report published today by the Cochrane library says that for every 2,000 women invited to have mammograms, 1 would have her life prolonged but 10 would endure potentially devastating and unnecessary treatment.
It suggests that abnormalities found during screening, which wouldn’t have affected women through their lives, are being removed and women are having to undergo invasive and unnecessary treatments such as mastectomies, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
With two million women aged 50 -70 invited to go for tests every 3 years, what are the implications for the future of screening? Rituala Shah is joined by professor Valerie Beral, chair of the advisory committee on breast cancer screening and Michael Baum, professor emeritus of surgery and visiting professor of medical humanities at University College London.
