doi: 10.1177/0141076815603563 J R Soc Med September 2015 vol. 108 no. 9 338-339
Catch it early, save a life and save a breast’: this misleading mantra of mammography
- University College London, London, UK
- Michael Baum. Email: michael{at}mbaum.freeserve.co.uk
The one thing every layperson and politician knows with confidence with regard to breast cancer is that you’ve got to ‘catch it early,’ preferably before you can even feel it. It may come as a shock to some readers, but I disagree and there’s such a thing as ‘catching it too early’. Like Peter G?tzsche in the current edition of the
JRSM,[SUP]
1[/SUP] I think that that the global breast cancer screening programme has to be considered a ‘failed experiment.’ I also agree that the service as now provided should be closed down. I would go on to suggest that all the human and technological resources released by the closure of the National Health Service Breast Screening Service (NHSBSP), be redeployed into more fruitful areas for enhancing women’s health. That aside we have much to learn from the fact that the experiment, set up in good faith, has indeed failed to live up to our expectations. The mantra, ‘Catch it early, save a life and save a breast', turns out to be a false promise. Screening may have a borderline effect on reducing cause-specific mortality but does not save lives as judged by the outcome measure of all-cause mortality.[SUP]
2[/SUP] As far as saving breasts is concerned, the opposite is the truth. Populations of women attending for screening have a greater chance of a mastectomy than any control group.[SUP]
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