New Breast Cancer Guidelines

Healthcare in the news always has me thinking of new studies I'd love to do, given time and an army of graduate students. (Some day...)

The new breast cancer screening guidelines has brought on a particularly interesting bout of media coverage. Just off the top of my head this week I listened to long discussions on NPR: Talk of the Nation, On Point, NBC: Meet the Press, NPR: Your Health, and Slate's Political Gabfest. (All great podcasts, by the way.)

It's been especially interesting to listen to the debate on shows like Talk of the Nation or On Point where callers are part of the discussion. Almost every one of these shows has featured at least one call from a woman reporting that her life was saved by a mammogram in her early 40s. Some of the healthcare professionals involved have then tried to explain that there's no way to know what would have happened if that cancer wasn't detected - it might have been slow growing and never caused problems, it might have been safely detected and dealt with when the woman turned 50, etc. To say that most callers don't find this to be a particularly compelling argument would be an understatement.

The whole issue is even more complicated when it's politicized, with some claiming that these new guidelines are just a sign of the rationing to come with nationalized healthcare. But that's a different story.

In any event, what I find really interesting is the persuasive impact and understanding of stats, personalized anecdotes, and everything else going on with the proposed mammogram guidelines. I don't know that I'll have a chance to do anything with this soon, but there are a lot of interesting things going on here.