Should I go for cancer screening?

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced a new recommendation that women should have their regular breast-cancer screening starting at age 50 and not 40. It also recommended mammogram screening biennially and not yearly. This sets off a controversy because the guidelines differ from those advocated by the medical professional bodies.

What should the layman do? Should the patients continue to go for health screening and ask for tests that offer some chance of preventing death regardless of the cost of the test or the odds of getting an accurate result from the screening?

Cancer screening can end up with false positives. For instance women who go for regular mammogram will have a 10% chance of getting a cancer scarce if they screen regularly for many years.

Before you go for cancer screening you should also ask if you want to know about the diagnosis. This question is not as absurd as it sounds because there are cancers like prostate cancer which is slow growing. If a man lives long enough he will get prostate cancer. This is a fact discovered from the autopsies of men over 70 who died from something else.

What would you do if you are in your late sixties or early seventies and you found that you have prostate cancer from routine cancer screening?

Can you ignore it or follow the doctor’s advice to undergo treatment like surgery which carries a risk of incontinence or impotence?

Should I go for cancer screening? This is a tough question for most cancers because the health screening tests to detect them are imperfect. But there are two good health screening tests that are strongly recommended and are proven to save lives and prevent death. These are the tests used for screening cervix and colon cancers.

1. Pap Smears are proven to be highly effective in identifying precancerous and malignant cervical cancer cells. Women should get a Pap smear at least every other year starting at age 20.

2. Health screening for Colon cancer can be done with a simple stool for occult blood test. This is painless and very inexpensive to perform. Colonoscopies are expensive but are very effective in detecting precancerous polyps and early cancers. This is highly recommended for people who are above 50 years old.

Related links:

• Health Screening Appointment