Breast Cancer Screening

A Department of Health and Human Services panel said only those older than 50 should get annual mammograms. The American Cancer Society strongly disagrees.

The panel found that for women younger than 50, the negative effects of yearly breast cancer screening outweighed the positives. They said false-positive test results are more likely before age 50 and can give women a false sense of worry or relief.

Doctors at St. Vincent Healthcare said they won't change their policies, and one local breast cancer survivor said reducing screening efforts doesn't make sense.

"Statistically they may say that only a certain percentage would not have been discovered," said breast cancer survivor Alice Golden, "however even if it's 1%, if you are that 1%, it might as well be 100%."

"Sometimes in the younger age groups you're detecting cancers that are more aggressive," said Mitch Gallagher, a radiologist at St. Vincent Healthcare. "So the idea of early detection mean's we're really curing a lot of cases."

Dr. Gallagher said doctors at St. Vincent have treated more than 300 cases of breast cancer since the beginning of 2008. He said 52 of which involved women between the ages of 40 and 49.