Do not jump too quickly to conclusions

A great deal of misinformation has been promulgated about mammography screening. For example, there is no biological or scientific support for the use of the age of 50 years as a threshold for screening. Mammography screening can reduce deaths from breast cancer even if the rate of advanced cancers is not decreased. The suggestion that screening results in massive amounts of overdiagnosis is based upon faulty methodology. The results reported in the recent study by Nederend and colleagues may be due to the screening interval and thresholds used for intervention. What is clear, however, is that they do not show that screening is ineffective.