Guidelines help individualize surveillance for older early-stage breast cancer survivors

Reuters Health - 02/02/2021 - New guidelines that lay out risks and benefits of surveillance mammography for older early-stage breast cancer survivors should be used to individualize management, researchers say. "How and when to stop mammograms in older breast cancer survivors can be challenging for clinicians and their patients for many reasons, including a lack of guidelines to support these decisions," Dr. Rachel Freedman of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston told Reuters Health by email. "Without consensus on how to approach mammograms in the aging patient, there is tremendous variability in use of mammography across the US, even when one's anticipated life expectancy is limited because of medical conditions that are unrelated to their breast cancer history." "We anticipate our guidelines will lead to better discussions with patients," she said, "better support for clinicians to guide patients in stopping mammography when the time is right, provide talki...

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Posted on 2 February, 202116 February, 2021