Fight Breast Cancer.

Fight Breast Cancer.

SCOTTSDALE – This week, Reuters reported alarming new findings from clinicians at the Harvard Medical School. The researchers reported that women who never got mammograms were far more likely to die of breast cancer than women who are regularly screened using mammography.

“The most effective method for women to avoid death from breast cancer is to have regular mammographic screening,” said Dr. Blake Cady of the Cambridge Hospital Breast Center and Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts.

The researchers reviewed data on 6,997 Massachusetts breast cancer patients between 1990 and 1997.  They separated patients into two groups, those who got regular mammograms and those who did not. They followed their outcomes clinically until 2007 before analyzing the data.

The study found that 75 percent of the women who died of breast cancer never had a mammogram or were diagnosed after their first mammogram. On the other hand, 25 percent of the women they studied who died of breast cancer had received more than one mammogram.

“Women who are in screening programs have only a 4.7 percent mortality. Women who are not screened have a 56 percent mortality,” added Dr. Cady. These numbers represent a very alarming difference. A mammogram is a simple x-ray examination of the breast and is inexpensive and readily available in the U.S. cities. Mammography can detect most breast cancers when the only signs of the disease are minuscule calcium deposits, which would otherwise not be detectable until many months or years.

“That is the same as the overall mortality (56 percent) we used to see in breast cancer up to 1970, prior to the onset of wide mammography screening”, stated Dr. Cady. According to the investigators, it was not clear why some patients did not receive mammograms as part of their regular healthcare. The National Cancer Institute recommends first mammogram beginning at age 40 and then yearly.

In the past, there has been some debate about the value of mammograms. Many recommend that women be screened regularly but a few studies have shown that mammograms may have false positives, in which a woman may have to undergo biopsy for a mammographically detected lesion, which ultimately is found not to be cancer.

Over the years, I have seen patients who resist having a mammogram. In some cases I have declined to perform breast surgery in patients who do not want to obtain a mammogram before routine breast surgery. This study is important because it shows the general value of mammography in improving survival with breast cancer. Not only is it logical to obtain a mammogram before breast surgery in patients over 35 years of age, but it may actually save a life, if early breast cancer is found.

The bottom line is that these findings support the revolutionary effect mammography has had on improving survival from breast cancer.