Office of NHS cancer screening programme misrepresents Nordic work in breast screening row

doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7321.1131

BMJ 2001;323:1131 ( 10 November )

Letters

Office of NHS cancer screening programme misrepresents Nordic work in breast screening row

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ In Mayor's news story in the issue of 27 October the office of the NHS cancer screening programme in the United Kingdommisrepresents our research entirely.¹ The office says thatour findings of more aggressive treatment of breast cancer amongscreened women are based on only two studies, classified as poorquality. They are not. Numbers of mastectomies as well as numbersof tumourectomies increase when women are screened. This findingis consistent and is based on all four of the seven screeningtrials that have published data on this, including the two mediumquality trials from Canada and Malmö.²

The office also incorrectly notes that we did not investigate whether more aggressive treatment was beneficial since we publishedextensive mortality data. ² ³ Furthermore, it is wrong tosay that our conclusion about the lack of benefit of mammographycomes from an analysis of the two trials of medium quality. . . . [Full text of this article]

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