Women who recently used birth control pills containing high-dose estrogen and a few other formulations had an increased risk for breast cancer, whereas women using some other formulations did not, according to a report about Group Health patients published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Nurse midwives test innovative care model: combining individual care with group support
The trend toward digital mammograms was given a mixed report card in the study Benefits, Harms, and Costs for Breast Cancer Screening After U.S. Implementation of Digital Mammography e-published on May 28 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
In an observational study of comparative safety, use of estradiol was associated with less risk of developing blood clots in leg veins (deep vein thrombosis) and clots in the lungs (pulmonary emboli) than was use of conjugated equine estrogens.
Screening for breast cancer every two years appears just as beneficial as yearly mammograms for women age 50–74, with significantly fewer “false positives”—even for women whose breasts were dense or who used hormone therapy for menopause.
Among older women, getting a mammogram every two years was just as beneficial as getting a mammogram annually, and led to significantly fewer false-positive results, according to a Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) study including patients and researchers from Group Health. The national study of more than 140,000 women between ages 66 and 89 is in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Serious questions remain about how best to balance screening’s benefits with its potential harms, including false-positive test results, overdiagnosis leading to invasive treatment for non-life-threatening conditions, and repeated exposure to radiation.
Land Acknowledgment
Our Seattle offices sit on the occupied land of the Duwamish and by the shared waters of the Coast Salish people, who have been here thousands of years and remain. Learn about practicing land acknowledgment.