New Mammogram Recommendations--An Opinion by a Breast Cancer Survivor's Daughter

The announcement by the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommending that women should not begin routine mammography until the age of fifty, and that doctors should cease in advising women to perform breast self exams is unconscionable.

Almost immediately the question as to whether or not there's a monetary or political agenda comes to mind. Does some agency or business stand to gain by the changes in the recommendation? Will one political party or a lobby gain an advantage by the suggestions? In addition, is it possible the Task Force had a built-in gender bias?

My intent in this article isn't to investigate or address those issues but simply to bring them to the forefront of the reader's awareness. What I do intend to discuss, however, are personal thoughts from my viewpoint as a breast cancer survivor's daughter.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer at age fifty-nine. She found a lump because she did self exams. Had she not done those exams, the cancer might still have been discovered in a routine mammogram, but the question is ... how long would it have taken? Two months? Six months? A year? In that amount of time, the stage two, grade three infiltrating ductal carcinoma would have been so advanced that the prognosis for recovery or remission would have been very poor.

What is there to lose by doing breast self exams? According to TV news reports, the main issue for the Task Force seems to be that a lump might be discovered that is benign, and the patient will endure worry, and unnecessary, costly tests.

Think about that for a minute. If that logic were followed in other areas of medicine, task forces would be advising the public to avoid going to the doctor for a simple cough, because there might be the unnecessary worry of pneumonia and the cost of chest x-rays, all just to discover that the patient has a cold. Or then again, perhaps it would mean the unexpected discovery that the patient doesn't have a cold, but has lung cancer that can be eradicated by chemotherapy and radiation.

Well, imagine that... maybe that visit to the doctor wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, despite the worry and cost.

As for routine mammograms being unnecessary before age fifty, come on! Unnecessary for whom? For someone else's mother, sister or daughter who is under the age of fifty and has an undiagnosed breast cancer?

My mom belongs to several breast cancer survivor groups. Perhaps the Task Force should have talked to her and the other survivors about the friends they've lost who were in their thirties and forties. Women like Sophie* who, in the prime of life, passed away and left behind a young family-a family that stood in shock and disbelief in front of Sophie's casket at the funeral.

Perhaps the Task Force should have visited with her husband, who still feels numb when he goes to bed at night because he's lost the love of his life.

Most of all, maybe the Task Force should have spoken to Sophie's young daughter who cries, "Mommy, I need you!" in her sleep and can't understand why Mommy doesn't answer. If those on the Task Force had a heart, perhaps that would have changed their minds about recommending the age for mammograms be changed to fifty.

Oh, but that's right ... those on the Task Force probably don't think CAT scans are necessary before fifty, either, so they don't even know they don't have hearts.

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(Author's note: Because of excellent doctors and the fact that my mom practiced self exams, she's a fourteen-year breast cancer survivor.)

*Fictitious name representing all women under fifty who've passed away from breast cancer and that left young families behind.

Sources:
Various TV news stations.
Personal experience.