US News: Women in Their 40s Ponder Whether to Skip the Mammogram

I called Susan Love, a breast surgeon and clinical professor of surgery at the University of California-Los Angeles medical school who is trying to recruit a million women for research trials to find the cause of breast cancer. I asked her: Do you think I should skip a mammogram when I turn 40?

Yes, she tells me, provided I am not at a higher-than-average risk of getting the disease...I ask Love to make the case for why I should feel comfortable delaying mammograms until I'm 50....

Love tells me I have to alter the preconceived notions about cancer that have been drummed into my head during 18 years as a health journalist. "One of the things that gets confused is that finding cancers isn't the same thing as changing the outcome," she says. "You can find cancer and not make a difference in whether a person is going to live or die."...

Love says there's also some evidence that the accumulation of radiation from yearly mammograms may actually cause some breast cancers.

...She also agrees that formal breast self-exams are a waste of time--though women should see their doctors if they suddenly feel a lump or thickening that wasn't there before while, say, soaping up in the shower or taking off their bra. And while clinical breast exams shouldn't fall by the wayside, she says the latest research on breast cancer suggests that the biology of the tumor, whether it's aggressive or mild, may be the most important factor in determining a woman's survival. (emphasis mine)