The timing of Tuesday's meeting of the radiology devices advisory committee fell precisely one day after the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) announced its recommendation regarding breast cancer screening, an announcement that was reviewed in the Oncology Extra in Tuesday's edition of Medical Device Daily.

The announcement by USPSTF stated that breast cancer screening for women between the ages of 40 and 49 should not be universal, but rather "should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient's values regarding specific benefits and harms."

The announcement was not well received, to put it mildly, and reverses a policy announcement made by USPSTF earlier this decade that led to annual screening for this population. The oscillation on this issue seems to mirror the question of how aggressively – and even whether – to treat men for high levels of prostate-specific antigen and/or prostatic hyperplasia, another medical question that has generated enormous controversy.

According to the Breast Imaging Commission, part of the American College of Radiology (Reston, Virginia), the adoption of that recommendation could reverse "two decades of decline in breast cancer mortality" and result in "countless American women [dying] needlessly from breast cancer each year." The BIC statement also notes that the guideline was crafted by "a federal government-funded committee with no medical imaging representation" and that the announcement comes across as "a conscious decision to ration care."

The American Cancer Society (Atlanta) was no more enthusiastic than others about the move. ACS's Nov. 16 statement notes that "the most recent data show us that approximately 17% of breast cancer deaths occurred in women who were diagnosed in their 40s, and 22% occurred in women diagnosed in their 50s." ACR acknowledged "the limitations of mammography," adding that the association "remain[s] committed to finding better tests," and is currently "funding a large study to improve the accuracy of mammography." The statement, however, makes no mention of the nature of the study.

– Mark McCarty