Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Federal Officials Issue New Guidelines in Effort to Provide Clarity on Issue of Mammograms

Aired February 22, 2002 - 09:15   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the issue of women's health. Finally, after months of controversy and confusing studies about the value of mammograms, federal officials yesterday issued yet new guidelines in an effort to provide some much-needed clarity on the issue.

Elizabeth Cohen, our own medical correspondent joins us now from Atlanta.

Elizabeth, you and I have been complaining about this for weeks, and finally, I guess, American women have a directive to operate by, because these studies left us in some pretty gray area.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: In a big mush, that's how I like to say it.

And hopefully, this will clarify all that mush, as you said, Paula.

What the federal government did is they came out and said, you know what, women ought to get mammograms starting age 40. I'll say it again, women ought to get mammograms stating age 40.

Now the American Cancer Society has been saying this for five years. And the debate has gone back and forth, with some people saying mammograms don't detect cancer as well as they should. Other people say, no, mammograms save lives, and with this recommendation, it's the federal government way of saying, look, enough is enough, we have spent time evaluating this studies, evaluating the evidence, and we say that if women start getting mammograms at age 40, that it will possibly save even more lives. The previous recommendation by the federal government had been 50, with the American Cancer Society and others pushing for 40, and basically that side won, and now the government says start getting them at 40 -- Paula.

ZAHN: So that's what I think the most interesting thing about this finding. Not only is it you need to have mammograms, let's start that baseline at the age of 40.

COHEN: Let's talk a little bit about that baseline and why it's important, because that's an important word. The government is not saying, look, we think that there are lots of women at age 40 out there who have cancer. What they're saying is at 40, you can get this baseline, you can get a picture of what hopefully your healthy breast tissue looks like, so that if at age 60, something looks kind of weird, you can go back to the mammogram 20 years ago and say, yes, I see a change there.

And that's so important in medicine to have something to compare it to. You want to know what you looked like 20 years ago, so you can say, you know, that funny little white area, that is a problem, because you didn't have it 20 years ago, and you have it now.

ZAHN: Elizabeth, I think we also need to make it clear for those of us who have a family history of breast cancer, there are other guidelines to follow and you should all consult your individual doctors for the best advice on that.

COHEN: Absolutely. Absolutely.

ZAHN: Elizabeth, have a good weekend.

COHEN: You too.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com