Thursday, November 19, 2009

Guiding Lines

Everyone is surely riveted to the kerfuffle around the recent change in the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on mammograms.

I must say that my own immediate response was one of pure delight. I can wait until age 50 to be squashed and x-rayed?! That's much farther in the future than 40! Win!

But apparently I was missing some of the details, since there are plenty of people who are pretty perturbed about it.

I was filled in by some fine posts on the subject, to which I here give full credit:

Orac at Respectful Insolence has a well-reasoned post explaining the new guidelines, and another addressing some of the objections to them. (It's actually partly due to reading Orac's previous posts on the often-fuzzy issues around preventive screening that I reacted so casually.)

Christine C. at Our Bodies Our Blog also covers the new guidelines in a clear, straightforward way.

And finally, if you need any more, Naomi Freundlich at Health Beat has excellent details.

Something all of these posts explain is that  no one is telling women they can't get a mammogram before 50 if there's a reason to think they may need one. The new guidelines are just saying that in general, if there are no risk factors calling for increased watchfulness, you don't need to feel you're neglecting your health unduly if you wait.

After doing this reading up, I can say that I personally remain comfortable with the idea of forgoing the mammogram until age 50, unless something about my circumstances between then and now suggests I'm at increased risk of breast cancer and should do it sooner.

I'll be totally cool with it if that doesn't happen.

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