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CNN Live Today

Study Reaffirms Benefit of Mammograms

Aired August 01, 2002 - 13:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A new study purports to reaffirm the benefit of mammograms in preventing breast cancer. The study involved a third of the women in Sweden, found that mammograms made a significant dent in breast cancer deaths. In recent years, other studies have questioned when mammograms are useful, and some people believe this report could put that debate to rest.

Joining us now to talk more about, Dr. William Wood, a breast cancer specialist at Emory University.

Dr. Wood, hello.

DR. WILLIAM WOOD, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Hello, how are you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Very good, thank you.

I guess this is good news. Feeling very good about this.

WOOD: It's very good news.

PHILLIPS: Yes, let's talk about this. Women can finally breathe a sigh of relief, yes?

WOOD: Yes. They felt very confused in recent months about this whole issue.

PHILLIPS: What exactly did the Swedish study do to kind of clear that confusion?

WOOD: The study looks at last 20, 25 years and compares the rates of breast cancer death in Sweden in the counties where they have introduced national screening before and after that introduction. They saw a dramatic drop in mortality from breast cancer, 44 percent among the women who actually accepted the invitation to free national screening.

PHILLIPS: So what does this mean now? Should we definitely go have a mammogram at any age? We feel comfortable about doing that? Or is it still around 40?

WOOD: The data suggests that at age 40, annual mammograms begin to have a dramatic effect on the risk from dying from breast cancer. The prior studies that were not a national follow up like this, but really randomization where large women -- large populations of women, over a half million women, were invited to have screening mammograms and another group was not showed a dramatic drop among everybody offered -- about 23 percent drop in mortality. But among the women who actually accepted this screening mammography it was about 30 percent.

So there wasn't really any study other than two very different Canadian studies that had not shown this benefit. But recently, two biostatisticians in Sweden asked questions about how valid were these older studies. And it was those questions that they raised that had many people rightly looking back at the data to make sure this was being done for sound reasons.

PHILLIPS: Also those Canadian study, unlike the Swedish study, was made of volunteers, right?

WOOD: That's exactly right, Kyra. The Canadian study looked at women who volunteered to participate in some form of screening, and the only difference was that some of the screened women were getting mammograms, and another group weren't. And over a short follow-up, that showed no survival advantage, to add mammograms to a group who were carefully screening themselves and being screened by their physicians without mammograms.

The studies with longer follow-up and those with screening versus no screening all showed the same sort of dramatic benefit that has been seen in this entire national study in Sweden.

PHILLIPS: So right now, do you see any risks at all?

WOOD: There really is no risk to the mammograms themselves. The risk of radiation to the breast is gone by about age 30 or 35. So screening at age 40 does not involve any risk of irradiation. It does run the risk of finding abnormalities in some women's breasts that are not cancer but are benign, and involves a needle biopsy or a core needle to prove that these are benign lesions.

PHILLIPS: Dr. William Wood, breast cancer specialist at Emory University, thanks, doctor.

WOOD: Very welcome, Kyra.

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