A local breast surgeon has endorsed the controversial recommendation recently made by a United States government-sponsored panel against routine annual mammograms for healthy women in their 40s.

Dr Patrick Bhoorasingh, senior medical officer at Kingston Public Hospital, yesterday told The Gleaner that the advice for healthy women to have routine mammograms at an older age was plausible.

Just last week after re-evaluating scientific research on mammography's ability to reduce deaths from breast cancer, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended that women in their 40s should consult a physician and make a decision reflecting their own preferences and values.

Annual mammograms for women 40 and younger only saved one life in almost 2,000, the panel said, indicating that the health-care costs and trauma might not be worth it.

The panel also suggested that women 50 and older should undergo mammograms every two years, not annually.

The recommendation does not apply to women at high risk for the disease.

The advice, however, has not gone down easy with some groups, sparking an intense debate throughout the US medical arena.

Full support

But Bhoorasingh said local doctors would be in full support of the recommendation.

"We definitely would support it," he said. "It is not a surprise, we expected the age to go up and it was something we were also looking into."

He said in Jamaica, the suggested age to start routine annual mammograms had been adjusted to 45. Age 50, he said, would also be a realistic target.

"When mammograms were first instituted, initially they started even earlier than that (40) and then what the statistics show is that over the years, the age group has been moving up," he said.

He said aside from the fact that mammograms carry both physiological and psychological risks, there are other examinations that could be done to detect lumps or possible signs of breast cancer.

"It has been found that it is not really cost-effective and, of course, mammograms are not totally without problems. The more mammograms you do eventually you expose your breasts to radiation, and it adds up," he said.

Bhoorasingh said that with persons living longer, a woman who starts having annual mammograms at age 40 would have undergone 30 screenings by the time she became a septuagenarian.

Other possible forms of assessments include self-breast examination, examination by a surgeon and ultrasound.

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com