One in three breast cancer patients who have experienced breast screening may be treated unnecessarily.  A study by Karsten Jorgensen and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen looked breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after government-run screening programmes for breast cancer started in parts of Australia, Britain, Canada, Norway and Sweden.

The research by BMJ (British Medical Journal) Jorgensen and Gotzsche did not cite any funding for their study.

Once screening programmes began, more cases of breast cancer were identified, as found in this study.  When a screening programme is successful, there should be a drop in the number of advanced cancer cases detected in older women, as their cancers should have been caught earlier when they were screened.

Jorgensen and Gotzsche found the national breast cancer screening which in Britain is mainly mammography, offered to women between the ages of 50 and 69, reported thousands more cases than previously identified and one third of the women identified as having breast cancer didn’t actually need to be treated.

Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can slow growing. Any identifiable cancer is treated, but the treatments can have harmful side-effects and be psychologically scarring.

Jorgensen stated that such information needs to be given to women so they can make an informed choice. ‘There is a significant harm in making women cancer patients without good reason.’

Women are encouraged to have a breast screening without them being informed of the risks involved, and may as a result have unnecessary treatment if a cancer was identified, even if it might never threaten their health.

‘Mammography is one of medicine’s ‘close calls,’ … where different people in the same situation might reasonably make different choices’(H. Gilbert Welch Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Research) ‘Mammography undoubtedly helps some women but hurts others.’

The study found that overtreatment occurs wherever there is widespread cancer screening.

Cancer Research UK stated that Britain’s breast cancer screening programme was partly responsible for the country’s reduced breast cancer cases.

It is important for women to go for screening when invited, though it was crucial for women to be informed of the potential benefits and harms of screening.

Source: www.bmj.com