Report questions breast cancer screening

News

A recent report has questioned whether women are being ‘overdiagnosed’ by current breast cancer screening techniques. Ellie Zolfagharifard reports on how technology might overcome this.

Screening technologies used to diagnose breast cancer are unable to distinguish between harmless and malignant tumours, a study has found.

The report by the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark claims that one in three breast cancer cases diagnosed by mammograms are harmless and can lead to women undergoing invasive treatment needlessly.

The study, which looked at data from the UK, Canada, Australia, Sweden and Norway, suggests that 'overdiagnosis' of cancer can affect up to 59 per cent of those undergoing treatment.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the researchers said: 'Screening for cancer may lead to earlier detection of lethal cancers but also detects harmless ones that will not cause death or symptoms.

'As it is not possible to distinguish between lethal and harmless cancers, all detected cancers are treated. Overdiagnosis and over-treatment are therefore inevitable.'

The results re-open the discussion surrounding existing screening technology, which uses low-dose X-rays that pass through the breast to an image receptor.

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