Left handedness and breast cancer: Should left handed premenopausal women be screened?

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.1024

BMJ 2005;331:1024 (29 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.1024

Letter

Left handedness and breast cancer

Should left handed premenopausal women be screened?

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

EDITOR—Ramadhani et al do not tell us in their articlewhat implications for the management of breast cancer (if any)their results will have.¹ The incidence of left handedness inthe general population is about 11.5% (10-11% of women and about13% of men).² The incidence for breast cancer is 1:8 over alifetime for a women, 1:2212 at the age of 30, 1:235 at theage of 40, 1:54 at the age of 50, and 1:23 at the age of 60.³Screening for breast cancer is currently available in the UnitedKingdom for women older than 50 by means of mammography, aninvestigation not routinely performed under the age of 35. Giventhe small numbers of women actually affected by the resultsof the study reported by Ramadhani et al, inventing a new screeningtool for this "population at risk" seems unnecessary.

The study does further not . . . [Full text of this article]

Bettina Lieske, specialist registrar in vascular surgery

Oxford OX3 9DU Bettina_Lieske@yahoo.co.uk

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