So what’s the right age for an Indian woman to start getting screened for breast cancer — 40 or 50? Opinion is divided just like it is in the US right now.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended on Monday that regular breast cancer screening of women should start at the age of 50 as opposed to 40, which is the suggested age right now in the US.

Publishing them in the journal “Annals of Internal Medicine”, USPSTF recommended against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years and start biennial screening mammography for women aged 50 to 74 years. It also said that current evidence is insufficient to assess the benefits of screening mammography in women 75 years or older.

Dr Diana Petitti, vice-chairperson of the task force, said, “The guidelines were aimed at reducing the harm from overscreening. A test can trigger unnecessary biopsies that can create extreme anxiety. And mammograms can find cancers that grow so slowly that they never would be noticed in a woman’s lifetime.”  READ MORE…

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