new recommendation on breast cancer screening- wait until age 50

I'm with you on this one
I just can't believe they are saying age 50. Personally, I think the first one should be around age 30. A business associate of George's, well, his daugher is 23 and going through breast cancer treatment. She has completed chemo, was lucky it shrunk the tumor and a lumpectomy and not mastectomy was done and she is now doing radiation then will be taking a few maintenance medicines for 5 plus years. I would like someone to look this poor girl in the eyes and tell her, women don't need to get checked until age 50. These new guidelines make no sense to me. Shameful.

A load of crap
I had a base line at 35. and have had one every year since 40. Well ok every 18 months. The self breast exam saved a couple of my friends life and one was in her thirty's and the other late forty's. I think it is wrong and they should screen the way they were. And women should always do self breast exams. I am really angry it sets the rules back when more lifes have been saved. I am with you Lisa.

John23 said:

Double thread?
Most of the information is here:
http://csn.cancer.org/node/180015

This isn't a new recommendation, it's the same recommendation as
it had been in 1997. This has been a debate among those in the
profession for years.

It remains to be a choice between doctor and patient, and that
is not about to change. The recommendation is just that, a
recommendation. It is not an order, nor will it be an order.

My insurance company has been cutting back on services and raising
rates since the last four years of the previous administration. Nothing
has changed. I am now on Medicare with my old company as
secondary, and I am getting more services now, than with the
private company alone.

Our health care system needs to be improved, not set on the back shelf
for another eight years as it's been in the past.

We should be rallying, not bellowing.

The other thread has links:
http://csn.cancer.org/node/180015



Better health!

John
Do you call "Better health!" telling women that a self-exam should not be done? That it is questionable whether they should even have a doctor examine them?

So following their "suggested guidelines" now, this means that a woman shouldn't have a mammogram or breast exam, self or doctor, till age 50. Do nothing. Nothing at all. And then just a mammogram every two years. This is what I call the stupidity! It has NOTHING to do with my views on the fact that we need to change our healthcare system. It has EVERYTHING to do with common sense.

Do you know how many women would have breast cancer that isn't caught if they followed this? Do you have any idea of how many women under age 50 get breast cancer? And how many are detected by mammogram or self-exam or doctor exams? Do you REALLY believe women should do NOTHING at all till age 50?

A good friend of mine is alive today (just finishing up her treatments) because of a self-exam, followed up by mammogram. She is in her 40's, not 50 yet. If she followed the advice to not do a self-exam, because they aren't effective, then what? She would have been dead before that magical age 50 to get the mammogram.

COMMON SENSE - they are missing it!