It’s confusing. When should women get their first Mammogram? A government task force has one again increased the confusion by recommending that women wait until they are 50 to begin getting regular mammograms instead of starting at 40.
Regular mammograms can help detect breast cancer early, but when to start getting them has been under debate for years and researchers at Harvard University found that 71 percent of breast cancer patients had not had a mammogram prior to diagnosis and half were under 50 years old. This would support the American Cancer Society’s recommendation that women get yearly mammograms once turning 40.
The study showed that a lot of women who aren’t getting mammograms before 50 are dying.
But the task force says that by starting Mammograms early there is an increased chance for more false positives, more biopsies, unnecessary radiation and a huge economic strain. So the recommendation to start screening for Breast Cancer should remain at age fifty.
How old were you when you got your first mammogram? What do you think about this debate?
