Dear Women's Imaging Insider,
You may have gathered by now that there's an ongoing, heated debate about the effectiveness of screening mammography for finding breast cancer and reducing the number of women who die from the disease each year. Mammography screening proponents argue their position with passion -- but so do those who are critical of the technology.
In this issue of the Insider, we're highlighting the latest salvo in the dispute. A new observational study led by Andrew Coldman, PhD, from the British Columbia Cancer Agency, and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that breast cancer screening reduced the mortality rate by 40% -- across all age groups of women.
But these results conflict with those from the Canadian National Breast Screening Study, from which 25-year follow-up data were published this year in BMJ. Read more about the new study and how it fits into the overall mammography conversation in our Insider Exclusive, available to you first as an Insider subscriber.
When you're finished, check out what else is going on in the Women's Imaging Community:
- Read why researchers from the University of Pennsylvania say that digital breast tomosynthesis shows its greatest benefit when used to screen women younger than 50.
- Learn why using computer-aided detection with digital mammography may not improve radiologists' performance when they interpret screening mammograms.
- Find out how mammography false positives are costing women money -- and time.
- Discover why University of Rochester researchers believe that breast CT has a bright future.
- Read about how nearly 60% of breast imaging radiologists experience repetitive strain injury.
As always, if you have a comment, report, or article idea to share about any aspect of women's imaging, please contact me.
