Breast cancer leaflet to be rewritten

Monday, 23 February 2009

A NHS leaflet informing patients about breast cancer screening is to be dropped and rewritten following complaints from experts.

Experts have said that the leaflet – sent out with invitations for women to attend screenings – is inadequate, misleading about the risks involved, and could mean women are being subjected to unnecessary surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Professor Mike Richards has announced that the leaflet Breast Screening: The Facts will be completely rewritten and published later this year.

“A formal review is in progress and will be tested against the best available evidence,” he said.

“Our cancer screening programmes in this country are internationally recognised as being world-class and 1,400 lives are saved every year through breast screening. I want to reassure women that breast screening is safe and can lead to cancer being diagnosed and treated much earlier.”

The decision followed a letter published inThe Times newspaper last week signed by 23 doctors, surgeons, academics and health specialists, who claimed that "there are harms associated with early detection of breast cancer by screening that are not widely acknowledged".

“For example, there is evidence to show that up to half of all cancers and their precursor lesions that are found by screening, if left to their own devices, might not do any harm to the woman during her natural lifespan,” said the letter.

“Yet, if found at screening, they potentially label the woman as a cancer patient: she may then be subjected to the unnecessary traumas of surgery, radiotherapy and perhaps chemotherapy, as well as suffer the potential for serious social and psychological problems.”

The letter quoted research published last month in the BMJ, which said that 10 healthy women out of every 2,000 who were screened would be treated for cancer.

People signing the letter included Professor Michael Baum, Emeritus Professor of Surgery at University College London and Dr Paul Pharoah, Cancer Research UK Senior Clinical Research Fellow, University of Cambridge.

The experts called for the NHS to rewrite the information so they were properly informed and able to make an informed decision.

The letter also said: “None of the invitations for screening come close to telling the truth” and it said the leaflet was not being honest about the risks.

Consequently, the women “are being manipulated, albeit unintentionally, into attending”.