Probably the Most Controversial Story of Today

concerns the recommendations by an influential panel that women who don't have high risk for developing breast cancer, such as those with a family history of the disease, not bother with annual mammograms until at least age 50, and afterwards have them only once every two years. The panel apparently believes there isn't really much benefit at all to most women to have these screenings. Furthermore, this panel suggests women not do self-exams, either.

You can read the panel's report right here.

A snip from the report:

False-positive results are common with mammography and can cause anxiety and lead to additional imaging studies and invasive procedures (such as biopsy or fine-needle aspiration). False-positive results and accompanying additional imaging studies are more common in younger women. Biopsies may occur as a consequence of false-positive mammography results; biopsy rates are more common among older women. Anxiety, distress, and other psychosocial effects can exist with abnormal mammography results but fortunately are usually transient, and some research suggests that these effects are not a barrier to screening. False-negative results occur at a relatively low rate for all ages, but are slightly higher in women older than 70 years. Other potential harms, such as pain caused by the procedure, exist but are thought to have little effect on mammography use.

Overdiagnosis can occur when screening detects early-stage invasive breast cancer or DCIS in a woman, typically older, who is likely to die from another cause before the breast cancer would be clinically detected. Overdiagnosis can also occur in younger women if a detected DCIS or other early-stage lesion never progresses to invasive cancer. Methods for estimating overdiagnosis at a population level are not well established, and thus the proportion of all detected DCIS lesions that constitute overdiagnosis is uncertain (7). Similarly, unnecessary earlier treatment can occur at any age when screening detects a slower-growing cancer that would have eventually become clinically apparent but would never have caused death.

Radiation exposure may increase the risk for breast cancer, but usually only at much higher doses than those used in mammography, although regular mammography could contribute to cumulative radiation doses from additional imaging for other reasons (7).

I never felt I needed to go through the mammography crap, so I haven't done it, and I am almost 55 years old.