Opinion: New draft recommendations for mammograms take a one-size-fits-all approach
All patients should have the opportunity to understand mammography’s limitations as well as its benefits.
On May 9, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) released updated draft recommendations for breast cancer screening. In contrast to their prior recommendations that most women start screening at 50, the USPSTF — a major national body making preventive care recommendations — now recommends screening mammography every two years for all women ages 40 to 74 years.
This is the USPSTF’s first substantial change to its breast cancer screening recommendations since 2009. Until then, the USPSTF had recommended annual mammography starting at 40. In 2009 and 2016, in light of growing evidence of the harms of mammography screening and the limited benefits among average-risk individuals under 50, the USPSTF recommended screening every two years starting at 50. They emphasized that decisions about starting mammography before age 50 or screening more than every two years should be informed by discussions between patients and their clinicians about mammography’s benefits and harms. In practice, there was growing emphasis on individualizing screening based on patients’ breast cancer risk factors and their own values and preferences about screening.
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