The effectiveness of mammography (screening for breast cancer by x-rays) was recently addressed in the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE).

A previous and highly controversial series of papers published by two researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, Peter Gotzsche and Ole Olsen, concluded that mammography does not save lives and instead exposed women to unnecessary diagnostic and surgical procedures.

Adding a fresh perspective to the debate, experts in statistical methodology, David A. Freedman (University of California, Berkeley), Diana B. Petitti (Kaiser Permanente, Southern California), and James M. Robins (Harvard School of Public Health), examined the Gotzsche-Olsen critique and found it to be severely flawed. The statistics team concluded that breast cancer screening does save lives.

What is known about the effectiveness of mammography comes from a small number of clinical trials conducted over the last four decades. Gotzsche and Olsen analyzed the results of these existing trials, but in drawing their conclusions, chose to exclude studies that found screening to be effective-for example, the Health Insurance Plan (HIP) trial in New York and the Two-County trial in Sweden-on the grounds that the positive trials were of poor quality.

Gotzsche and Olsen did include in their analysis the Canadian National Breast Screening Study (CNBSS-which found mammography not to be effective-arguing that CNBSS was of adequate quality.

In their paper, "On the Efficacy of Screening for Breast Cancer," Freedman, Petitti, and Robins find that the Gotzsche-Olsen judgments of trial quality were based on misreadings of the data and the literature. For example, Gotzsche and Olsen claim that HIP's exclusion of high-risk women from the screening group biased the study. Freedman et al. show this claim is incorrect.

Gotzsche and Olsen also say there are inconsistencies in the way the Two-County trial reported its data. Freedman et al. show that the "inconsistencies" reflect a misunderstanding of the reporting rules, which were explained in the papers cited by Gotzsche and Olsen.

The Gotzsche-Olsen paper originally appeared in the Jan. 8, 2000 issue of the British journal Lancet.

Freedman et al. conclude: "Clinical trials of mammography have led to substantial advances in understanding breast cancer, and a substantial reduction in mortality from this disease. It is time to move on, although some questions may remain."

SOURCES:
International Journal of Epidemiology, April 2004
Harvard School of Public Health (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu)
Lancet, January 8, 200