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New research from Europe shows that regular breast screening by mammogram leads to a marked fall in deaths from breast cancer. If you're a regular reader, you'll know I go on a bit about clinical trials - which randomly assign the treatment or test to one group against a comparison or control group. They're the so-called gold standard for evidence. Well, I'll let you in on a secret. Even the best trials don't tell you a lot about what happens in real life, where people and doctors are fickle and happenstance gets in the way. That's why there's been a raging debate about whether mammographic screening for breast cancer actually saves lives, because the evidence has been based on a handful of trials. But now two studies in the real world support screening. One, of 210,000 Swedish women aged between 40 and 69, showed that the risk of death from breast cancer in those who'd been screened was 50 percent lower than before mammography had been introduced. Non-screened women's chances of dying fell too because of better treatment but that was by 18 percent. So the net benefit of screening was about a 30 percent reduction. Another study from The Netherlands has been able to allow for the effects of improved breast cancer treatment and found convincing evidence for reduced risk in mammogramed women. And there was no increase in all deaths from other causes.
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