Breast Scanning and Reduced Mortality Rates

According to a Canadian study, Breast cancer mortality can be reduced up to 40% by the use of early mammography. This study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Andrew Coldman, PhD, from the British Columbia Cancer Agency stated: “Most observational data on screening mammography — including our results here — have found a reduction in mortality rates,” Coldman told AuntMinnie.com. “Unfortunately, the few studies that don’t find mammography helpful get more publicity than the ones that do.”

12 provincial breast cancer programs were invited in this study. 7 programs agreed to provide data. The researchers put women into two groups. All these women had at least one mammography between the age of 40 and 79. The researchers found 40% reduce breast cancer mortality in the data provided by provinces that participated. Coldman and his colleagues said that age didn’t greatly affect the average reduction in mortality. Coldman further explained that this reduction in mortality is not due to any breast cancer awareness program or any specific treatment. According to Dr. Russell Harris, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the research of the Coldman and the research of CNSBCC used different methods but used the same data.

“The CNBSS was an RCT, assuring similarity of compared groups by randomization,” Harris wrote. “The provincial study, on the other hand, is an observational study that pulls together data from each of the seven screening programs, provincial cancer registries, and provincial mortality databases in an attempt to compare observed breast cancer mortality among ‘participants’ with expected mortality if they had not been screened.”

References: 

http://www.auntminnie.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=wom&pag=dis&ItemID=108880&wf=6229