An article that got published in the Medical Journal of Australia has revealed that women are being petrified by the word breast cancer. Due to which, they are forced to undergo mammograms which are totally unneeded.

The article authors, Robin Bell and Robert Burton from the Monash University, have said that over diagnosing has done no good for women. In fact, the advancements in cancer treatments have brought reduction in the number of breast cancer deaths.

Henceforth, they have initiated a BreastScreen program in which experts would tell women the advantages and disadvantages of breast screening. It is not the first time that such a programme has been initiated as similar to it a publicly-funded programme is also being organized every year since 1991.

Every year, around 2000 women take part in this programme and there they not only gain knowledge about how to identify cancer, but also gets a chance to have one to one interaction with experts. The Cancer Council said that anything can be dangerous if done in excess.

This is the reason that they have been asking women to stop getting overly diagnosed for breast cancer. As per their guidelines, women aged between 50 and 69 should get mammogram done thrice. This is more than enough for that age group, said Prof Bell. He further affirmed, “Over diagnosis amounts to women having a small, slow-growing cancer being diagnosed and treated, where in her lifetime that cancer may not have required treatment”.

One more truth that he revealed was that no screening program is 100% accurate. Every test has its false positive and false negatives. So, there is no use of trusting that test which can ditch one at any moment.

It would be better that women should get their mammograms done as per their Cancer Council guidelines, said Bell.