ACOG’s guidelines are for women with an average risk for breast cancer – not those with family history of the disease.
“As with any screening test, there are cancers that are missed by screening,” Griffin says. “Women should be aware that if something changes in their breast, even if they’ve had a normal screening mammogram, they should let their doctors know.”
In 2009, the USPS task force advised women to start regular mammograms at age 50 instead of 40 and get them less frequently – every two years instead of annually. The goal was to reduce overtreatment for slow-growing cancers that pose little threat, and to reduce the number of false alarms on mammograms, which often occurred with additional testing.
For more information about breast cancer, please visit the BDO Breast Cancer Channel.
The ACOG Issues New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines was originally published on blackdoctor.org
