Women Confused Over New Breast Cancer Screening Recommendations

Boston (DbTechNo) - Critics have been voicing their concerns over recent guidelines released by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force regarding breast cancer screening.

The task force, stated in their guidelines that women did not need to perform self breast exams, as there was no evidence to show that they are actually aiding in earlier diagnosis of tumors.

Also, the task force recommended that women over the age of 40 did not need to go for yearly mammograms to check for breast cancer, but should start going after they turn 50.

Previous guidelines called for women to begin yearly mammograms once they turned 40, thus these new guidelines caused quite a stir.

The task force went before Congress to quantify their recommendations, and admitted that they were misworded to a certain extent.

They now state that women over the age of 40 should think about going for mammograms to check for cancer of the breast, but that it is not manditory for them to do so.

The earlier that a breast cancer is diagnosed, the better the chance of survival for the patient, thus it makes sense to screen for the disease as often and as regular as possible.