It isn't always best to know. Mammogram screening for breast cancer isn't much better than the test for prostate cancer, widely criticised for its overdiagnosis rate. That is the conclusion of a 50-year review of mammography studies. It suggests that the benefits of screening have been exaggerated and the harm underplayed -especially the risk of unnecessary treatment thanks to overdiagnosis. "For years, we knew that prostate screening was problematic, but we always thought we had a winner in mammography," says lead author Nancy Keating of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. "Now we're finding it's not that different from the prostate antigen test."
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