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Keith Loria, Reporter | January 13, 2009
Breast cancer screening
standards unclear
Each year, some 1.6 million women get breast biopsies after a mammogram discovers something amiss. According to a new study, however, a whopping 600,000 are getting invasive surgery instead of a needle biopsy.
A recent report by CBS News focused on doctors at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York who were studying what procedure U.S. women were likely to get around the country and the findings were somewhat alarming.
The researchers found that the more risky, painful, and expensive surgery was being performed on more than a third of these patients despite the finding that 90 percent of abnormal mammograms turn up nothing cancerous.
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CBS News medical correspondent Jon LaPook pointed out that the surgical biopsies cost at least $5,000 and require sedation and stitches. In contrast, a needle biopsy is done under local anesthesia, leaves a pinhole-sized scar and costs no more than $2,000.
"It's something they've been doing for the past 25 years; they're comfortable with the diagnostic accuracy," said Dr. I Michael Leitman, chief of general surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center and co-author of the study. "And they're somewhat hesitant to make a change."
Read DOTmed News coverage of CAD and false positive outcomes:
https://www.dotmed.com/news/story/7664/
