Why Some Women Delay Mammography in Their 40s
A recent U.S. survey revealed that informed discussions about mammography benefits and risks may lead women in their 40s to consider delaying the start of screenings, weighing concerns such as overdiagnosis and false positives ().
Women who wanted to delay screening after being presented with a decision aid describing the evidence were at a lower breast cancer risk than those who wanted screening at their current age.
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Navigating Mammography Guidelines
These findings are particularly relevant as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently changed its recommendation for mammography screening from informed decision making to biennial screening for women aged 40 to 49 years.The study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver VA Center of Innovation surveyed 495 women aged 39 to 49 years without a history of breast cancer or a known BRCA1/2 gene mutation to assess screening preferences before and after receipt of a decision aid describing the benefits and harms of beginning screening at age 40.
The researchers found that before the decision aid, 8.5% of participants preferred to wait until 50 to screen versus 18% after reading the decision aid. There was no increase in the number of participants who said they never wanted to have mammograms, suggesting that the evidence did not discourage screening altogether.
More than a quarter of participants indicated that overdiagnosis was different than what their doctor told them and almost one-third found that information about overdiagnosis conflicted with other messaging about screening.
These findings suggest that providing information about both benefits and harms may change intention to screen for some women.
Reference:
- Mammography Screening Preferences Among Screening-Eligible Women in Their 40s - (https:www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-3325)
Source: Eurekalert