Most women with early stage breast cancer are tested for metastases despite advice against it, study finds

Eighty six per cent of women with early stage breast cancer underwent imaging to determine whether their cancer had spread, contradicting guidelines advising against such testing, a study published in the journal of the Canadian Medical Association, CMAJ, has found.1

Guidelines of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the European School of Oncology, and Cancer Care Ontario recommend against imaging for metastatic cancer in asymptomatic women with stage I or II breast cancer, because the likelihood of metastases was low and the rate of false positive results high.

The study of 26 547 women in Ontario who had been …