[AOII Angel]

As a mammographer, I am dismayed by the recent recommendations to change screening age to 50 and older. The American Cancer Society and The American College of Radiology continue to endorse screening beginning at age 40. I am especially surprised at the lack of concern over the idea of missing cases of cancer so that we can decrease the "mental distress" over false positive mammograms. I think women a resilient enough to handle false positive exams, undergo a negative biopsy so that other women can have their cancers diagnosed at an early stage.

As for self-breast exam...do it if you want. It doesn't improve survival in any study. If you are waiting until you can feel a cancer to treat one, you are treating it at a late stage. Mammography is designed to find tumors when they are invisible except for a few tiny calcifications in the ducts of the breast. There are many anecdotal stories of woman surviving after finding their breast cancers incidentally, but most women who find their breast cancers by self-breast exam are finding them late because they haven't been getting any health care, including mammograms.