Harms outweigh benefits for women aged 70 and over in UK's national breast cancer screening programs
Friday, March 21, 2014 - 17:00
in Health & Medicine
Extending national breast cancer screening programs to women over the age of 70 does not result in a decrease in the numbers of cancers detected at advanced stages, according to new research. Instead, researchers say that their findings suggest that extending screening programs to older women results in a large proportion of women being over-treated, and at risk from the harmful effects of such treatment, because these women were more likely to die from other causes than from any tumors detected in the early stages of growth.