On May 9, I received an alert on my cellphone from USA Today, titled “Breast cancer screening should start at age 40 - 10 years earlier than previous advice, group says.”

While listening to ABC Good Morning America the next day, they ran a segment with Dr. Jen Ashton, chief medical correspondent for the show, on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s new recommendations for breast cancer screenings.

Ashton began by first giving some historical context on the issue.

“Back in 2009, 2010, the same group, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, did the opposite,” she explained. “They raised the screening age for women at average risk starting at 40 to 50. It was met with uproar.

“Now they have about 14 years of data and they have made adjustments in their recommendations, and here is what they are suggesting now.

“These are draft recommendations for an average risk cisgender woman for basic screening with mammograms to start at age 40 and then basically every other year.

“Now, just to keep the controversy going, the American Cancer Society and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have their own slightly different recommendations as to when and how often.

“The American Cancer Society recommends an average risk woman start at age 40 and then every year until at least age 55.

“ACOG, my organization, recommends average risk woman start at age 40 then every year or every other year at least until age 75.

“I think in medicine and public health we always have to stay open minded to the incorporation and analysis of new data.

“And, what they found is women in their 40s are getting more cancers and black women in particular are at a 40% higher risk of dying after a breast cancer diagnosis, so they are shifting those recommendations.”

Coming from a family with a history of breast cancer, I know how important it is to have yearly routine mammograms.

In 1997, during a yearly routine mammogram, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 69.

Thanks to that routine mammogram, my mother became a cancer survivor and lived another 17 years.

And, if I had not started having yearly mammograms when I was in my 40s, the doctors might not have discovered the beginning stages of a mass in my breast.

So, mammograms do save lives.

Men, encourage the women in your lives to have yearly mammograms.

All mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and female friends, age 40 and older, should be encouraged to have a yearly mammogram.

Breast cancer can kill.

Susan Bryant

editorial assistant

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press