Self- Breast Examinations

Personally and professionally, the new recommendations issued by the AHRQ at http://www.ahrq.gov/CLINIC/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm cause me concern.

Approximately eight years ago, I was attending the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting in Toronto. While there, the headlines in the Toronto paper extolled the government's new policy of dissuading women from doing self-breast exams.

It seemed to me, at the time, that the only reason for this decision was to reduce healthcare costs by reducing costs for mammograms and biopsies, while sacrificing the possibility of early detection of breast cancer.

It now appears the US Government has taken this a step further by not only dissuading self-breast examinations but also by recommending the end to mammography screening in women under 50 years old. Having been indoctrinated with the importance of self-breast examinations in medical school, and dealt with patients who found breast lumps that eventually turned out to be malignant; I believe self-breast exams are critically important for every woman, no matter how old. You can find some important, and easy to understand statistics on breast cancer rates here. Thank you to Imaginis for providing this information to the public.

I have never seen any medical argument against self-examination as not being one valid way for early detection of breast cancer unless it was ultimately driven by cost saving. In fact, if women do their own examinations, it is likely they will detect a change much earlier than a doctor might at a yearly physical.

As a researcher in breast cancer detection and imaging, I worry that this recommendation is only the tip of the iceberg as the US government takes control of our healthcare.