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Senators hear criticism of mammography guidelines
February 5, 1997
Web posted at: 11:30 p.m. ESTFrom Correspondent Jeff Levine
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senators on Wednesday attacked a government panel's failure to come up with mammography guidelines for younger women.
The National Cancer Institute now recommends mammograms for women 50 and older. Lawmakers complained that leaving open the decision to younger individuals created confusion.
"When I saw what the advisory committee for the National Cancer Institute and other organizations did a couple of weeks ago, I was appalled," Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas told an Appropriations Subcommittee hearing.
The controversy started last month, when an advisory panel to the National Institutes of Health failed to decide whether the government should reissue guidelines calling for periodic mammograms for women in their 40s.
Even the director of the National Cancer Institute, who convened the scientific meeting, disagreed with the outcome, "largely because I thought it minimized the evidence that there is benefit and it overemphasized certain risks," Dr. Richard Klausner told the hearing.
Experts say mammography saves lives in women older than 50, but the value of breast X-rays in younger women is still in debate. Breast cancer survivors are less ambivalent.
"If we tell women in their 40s to get a mammogram every year, we are saying ignorance is bliss," said breast cancer survivor Frances Visco. "What we need to tell them is that there are pros and cons, risks and benefits."
New data from Sweden suggests mammography in women age 40 to 49 could drop the death rate from breast cancer by 15 percent.
But mammograms miss an estimated 20 percent of breast cancers, and most of the suspicious growths they do find turn out to be false alarms. There is also concern that even the small dose of radiation might trigger cancers in some.
About 180,000 women will be diagnosed with the disease this year in the United States, and more than 40,000 will die.
On Tuesday, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution urging a National Cancer Institute advisory panel to consider reissuing the old guideline, calling for mammograms of younger women. The National Cancer Institute will take another look at the controversy at the end of the month.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Panel does little to settle mammogram debate - January 23, 1997
- Three studies recommend earlier mammograms - December 2, 1996
- Estrogen therapy may affect mammograms, study says - May 15, 1996
- New breast cancer imaging system decreases need for biopsies - December 15, 1996
Related sites:
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- National Cancer Institute's CancerNet
- National Institutes of Health
- Breast Cancer Network
- CDC Breast Cancer-Related Projects
- American Cancer Society
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