A new study from Canada suggests that the potential cancer risk from radiation during a mammogram is very small compared to the benefits of lives saved from early detection of the breast cancer.
Said Martin Yafee researcher at Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto, “This risk of radiation-induced breast cancers is mentioned periodically by women and people who are critiquing screening [and how often it should be done and in whom.”
Added Dr Arnold Rotter from the radiology department at City of Hope Cancer center in Duarte, CA, "This study says that the good obtained from having a screening mammogram far exceeds the risk you might have from the radiation received from the low-dose mammogram,"
Dr Yaffe and his team developed a mathematical model to estimate the risk of radiation-induced breast cancer following exposure to radiation from mammograms, and then estimated the number of breast cancers, fatal breast cancers and years of life lost attributable to the mammography's screening radiation. They applied this model to hypothetical data from women who undergo mammograms.
What they found: If 100,000 women got annual mammograms from ages 40 to 55 and then got mammograms every other year until age 74, 86 breast cancers and 11 deaths would be attributable to the mammography radiation.
Simply put another way, Jaffe said: "Your chances are one in 1,000 of developing a breast cancer from the radiation. Your chances of dying are one in 10,000. But the lifetime risk of breast cancer is estimated at about one in eight or nine.” he added.
"I'm not minimizing the concern of radiation," Rotter said. "Everything is a balance." For example, younger breasts, particularly those of women aged 40 to 49, are more sensitive to radiation than breasts in older women, but the new study shows it's better to get the screening mammography than skip it.
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