Southern Nevada doctors push for mammograms after study says they don’t reduce breast cancer deaths

A new study showing mammograms might not reduce breast cancer deaths doesn’t change the advice of Southern Nevada doctors who say women should screen themselves on a regular basis.

“Be aware of your breasts,” Dr. Souzan El-Eid said. “Remember, breast cancer incidence increases with age, so do your self-exams every month.”

The breast surgeon with Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada urged women not to let the new study dissuade them from the advantages of preventative screenings. Nevada already lags other states for the rates at which women are screened for breast cancer.

Researchers reported Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine journal that the number of breast cancer diagnoses rose with the number of screenings, but the amount of breast cancer deaths over the ensuing 10 years remained the same. In areas of the U.S. with high levels of screening, more tumors were diagnosed, but breast cancer death rates were no lower than in areas with fewer screenings, the researchers reported.

“Mammograms remain our most important diagnostic tool to detect breast cancers at the earliest stage,” Dr. Brian Lawenda of 21st Century Oncology.

El-Eid and Lawenda said many variables play a role in outcomes from genetic history to environmental factors to other health conditions, and the quality and suitability of treatments people receive. The collection of data on mammograms still is too recent to show the importance of such screenings, but experts learn more every year because breat cancer remains an area of active research.

The findings suggest breast cancer screenings lead to overdiagnosis because they mainly catch smaller tumors, the researchers say. Mammograms can detect cancers that are too small to be detected by a routine self-exam, and those issues need to be identified early to prevent them from growing into bigger problems.

“We don’t know which patients’ small cancers are the deadly ones,” Lawenda said. “We’re still in the earliest understandings of trying to figure out which breast cancers are deadly and which ones are not.”.

In Nevada, 56.2 percent of female Medicare enrollees ages 67-69 receive mammograms, according to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s county health rankings released in March. That compares with the top U.S. performing states in which more than 70 percent are screened.

Each year, about 232,000 U.S. women are newly diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, and 40,000 women die from the disease. In Nevada, 1,700 women will be newly diagnosed each year, and 150 will die.

Reuters contributed to this report. Contact Steven Moore at smoore@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563.