Will new detection guidelines lead to overdiagnosis of breast cancer?
Lynn Harris Apr. 11, 2007 | Money: It’s a major argument against the American Cancer Society’s new recommendation that women at high risk of breast cancer receive MRIs along with their mammograms (reported here on Broadsheet). MRIs, in short, are expensive. “All right, ACS,” one can almost hear women saying, “My PPO won’t pay for that — I assume you will?” “Not surprisingly, many insurers don’t want to pay,” acknowledge Dartmouth physicians H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin in an editorial in Tuesday’s Washington Post. “So the big battle seems destined to be about who will. You will soon hear advocates talking about legislation to ensure payment and accusing those who do not want to pay for the test of denying access to lifesaving services simply to save money. “This,” they add, “is wrong.” The focus on cost is ill placed, they say, because the recent study that bolstered the ACS guidelines does not necessarily prove that MRIs themselves find more cancer in the first
