Tag Archives: mammography
Mammography in Elderly Women
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th July 2025I’ve written several articles about the difficulties inherent in screening for diseases that are common and associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The two most prominent are breast cancer and prostate cancer. Both have screening tests that are widely used, but the public and many physicians seem to be unaware of their limitations. Overdiagnosis is…
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Mammography Should Start at Age 40 Says Task Force
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd May 2024The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) just released a new breast cancer mammography screening recommendation. It advised that mammography should start at age 40, though the report nowhere mentions this new start. The Task Force’s full report is appended below. Here are some direct quotations from the report which presumably contain the evidence for…
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Mammography Screening in Switzerland
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th May 2014The May 22, 2014 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine has a perspective piece that is even more instructive than its authors and the journal’s editors realized: ‘Abolishing Mammography Screening Programs? A View from the Swiss Medical Board’. It describes the process that the Swiss used to evaluate the scientific foundation for the…
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The Cost of a Mammogram
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th March 2010The descent to health helplessness is illustrated by mammography. Everyone had been in hysterics about whether health insurance, government or otherwise, will cover routine mammograms. Forget about whether the procedure is useful or not and focus on what it tells us about our loss of self reliance. The average cost of a mammogram is $102…
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The Limitations of Cancer Screening
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st November 2009A recent article in the JAMA has received a lot of coverage in the lay press. It analyzes screening for breast and prostate cancer. Critics of both screening tests (including me) have, over many years, pointed out the problems inherent in screening for any disease, but most specifically these two. We mostly have been ignored….
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