RSS Feeds

Email a Friend Printer Friendly

Women need better information about breast screening

July 09, 2003

Information about breast screening must be improved if women are to fully understand both the benefits and the potential harms in order to make an informed choice, argue researchers in this week's BMJ.

Although breast screening is well established in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, its value continues to be debated. Estimates of the effect of screening on breast cancer deaths vary widely, and women are given limited information in terms that are often hard to understand.

As a result, harms are often dismissed as a price worth paying for the perceived general good and few people appreciate that screening contributes to the rise in incidence of breast cancer, write the authors.

Tensions exist between the demands of the screening industry's "pursuit of good uptake" and properly promoting informed choice for citizens as required by the GMC guidelines, they add. Although much research has been done, so far there has been negligible improvement in NHS screening leaflets and public misconceptions.

The focus of research into screening programmes should not be to improve uptake but to develop flexible decision aids to meet women's desires for balanced information.

It is unacceptable that women taking tests continue to suffer damage and regret because they found out the harms of screening from experience. Unless women are able to make true informed choices, funding for the service will continue to be questioned, they conclude.

British Medical Journal (BMJ)