A government-funded task force is recommending significant changes for breast cancer screening. Computer models convinced government experts to change their advice. Those models show getting mammograms
too soon may cause more harm than good.

The recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a government board of medical experts and scientists, are being criticized from the American Cancer Society. The USPSTF suggest most women do not need a mammogram as early as originally told and should wait until their fifties. Even then, the task force says women should only get one every two years. Their second recommendation states that doctors should not teach women to self-examine their breasts for lumps due to the belief that it is essentially pointless. They still are recommending doctors start screening all women over age 50, but with a mammogram once every two years instead of annually.

The USPSTF says the new recommendation is a grade “C” recommendation against routine screening at age 40 to 49 and that the Task Force “encourages individualized, informed decision making about when to start mammography screening”.

“Not screening all women in their 40s and every other year in their 50s is an opportunity to miss some cancer and miss saving lives,” said Dr. Elizabeth Fontham, dean of the Louisiana School of Public Health and the national volunteer president for the American Cancer Society. “I certainly think it is going to confuse women, and that’s unfortunate.”

New Mammogram Advice Gets Mixed Reactions