The Charleston Breast Center encourages women to continue receiving annual mammograms beginning at age 40. Its announcement followed the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force’s report that women should wait until aged 50 to begin receiving annual screenings.
The Breast Center said that the Task Force’s report is more concerned with saving money and cutting healthcare costs than saving women’s lives.
“We are very concerned that these new guidelines and the confusion around them is going to result in decreased screening and that is ultimately going to result in increased death,” says Dr. Laura Amodei, director of MRI at the Charleston Breast Center.
Since mammograms began in the U.S. in 1990, they’ve cut breast cancer mortality rates by 30 percent, Amodei says. What’s more is that the cure rate for breast cancer that is detected early is over 99 percent.
A debate is likely imminent over whether insurance companies will continue to cover mammograms before 50 or not kick in coverage until after 50.
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