LOS ANGELES — Mammograms don’t help women over 50 as much as has been believed, new research suggests.
Only a third of the reduced risk of death credited to breast-cancer screening is actually deserved — the rest is due to better treatment and greater awareness of the disease, a large study in Norway found.
The research, published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, is the latest to in dicate that the benefits of mammography are limited.
“It’s not the great lifesaver that people think it is. It’s not a magic bullet,” said Georgetown University researcher Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt, who was not involved in the study.
Mandelblatt headed six teams that helped shape the new mammogram guidelines issued last year by an influential government task force. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded that women at average risk for breast cancer don’t need mammograms in their 40s and should get one just every two years starting at 50.
The latest study found that while mammograms cut the risk of dying, the benefit was disappointingly low. Women who were screened had a 10 percent lower risk of death from breast cancer, but only a third of that reduction was due to screening itself.
