Breast cancer screening, yes or no ?
To form an opinion about breast cancer screening and decide whether or not to participate, it is interesting to weigh the expected benefits against the potential harms. Unfortunately, both benefits and harms of screening are poorly understood and subject to heated debates in the medical community.
Faced with such uncertainty, the chosen approach is to present you:
| with participation | without participation | balance sheet |
|---|---|---|
| 88 à 89 breast cancers | 79 à 80 breast cancers | 8 à 9 overdiagnosis |
| 18 à 19 death from breast cancer | 26 à 27 death from breast cancer | 7 à 8 deaths avoided |
| with participation | without participation | balance sheet |
|---|---|---|
| 97 à 98 breast cancers | 63 à 64 breast cancers | 34 à 35 overdiagnosis |
| 20 à 21 death from breast cancer | 22 à 23 death from breast cancer | 1 à 2 deaths avoided |
IN SUMMARY
Based on used assumptions, for every 1 death prevented : between 1 and 31 lives needlessly disturbed by overdiagnosis and related overtreatment. Even in the best-case scenario (decrease of mortality by 35%), moins de 1 chance(s) out of 100 to prevent a breast cancer death through screening. Therefore, it's important not to exaggerate the significance of screening. For the vast majority of women, whether they choose to be screened or not will not make a difference (except for one or more false alarms for 662 of them).