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Screening women over 70 for breast cancer does not produce expected fall in advanced disease, Dutch study finds

BMJ 2014; 349 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g5664 (Published 15 September 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g5664
  1. Zosia Kmietowicz
  1. 1The BMJ

Including much older women in the Dutch breast cancer screening programme has not led to the anticipated steep fall in new cases of advanced disease in this age group, a study has found. Instead, the policy of screening older women may result in overdiagnosis and overtreatment, the researchers warned.

The study, by a team based at Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, was published in The BMJ on 15 September at the start of the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference in Oxford.1 The conference was hosted by the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, in partnership with The BMJ’s Too Much Medicine campaign (www.bmj.com/too-much-medicine).

The …

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