incompleteness of breast screening

They have to tell you about the issue of false positives - if you’re not given the range of risks and benefits then you can’t give informed consent. In the bad old days we weren’t informed anywhere near enough and we shouldn’t legally or ethically go back to that type of paternalism. There isn’t an age limit on the screening - just on the automatic recall.

But for screening my cancer would not have been detected early please go for it .

Totally agree with situpstraight

They stop at 70 in Scotland as well, but they are more than happy to see you after that if you call them. It’s not the same up here for smears, they stop at 65 and even if you phone they won’t do one after that.

This article helps to explain the pros and cons of screening, and puts the recent scare into context:

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/03/breast-cancer-screening-helpline-inundated-calls-unnecessary-anxiety

Unlike, say, bowel cancer screening, breast cancer screening has a significant false-positive rate. For every life saved by screening, a great many more women will have had treatment (surgery, radiotherapy) for a cancer that would not have killed them, and might never have affected them at all. This seems to be especially the case in older women. So the benefits of screening are far from clear-cut.

Good post granny.

Breast cancer over 70 is quite common and I didn't even go then as it is not a 100% sure. Many still die of cancer in spite of a mammogram and many others find the lump themselves and get cured.
I got the feeling it was broadcast to cover up for T.May and turn attention away from her problems.
Too many mammograms are also not healthy, but it is easy for us in Germany we get the breasts manually checked by a gynecologist once a year.

Just a follow-up to what I said above: there was a specialist being interviewed about this on Today this morning (around 8.20 if you want to seek it out). He said that it's impossible to tell which lives might have been saved by screening, as even the screened women may have a cancer that is is not detected and may die anyway; he also said that for every woman who does have her life saved by screening, four more are subjected to unnecessary treatments, so even if 200 women would have had their lives saved, another 800 would have had harm inflicted on them unnecessarily - and we can't tell one group from the other.

Many years ago I was shown by a gynaecologist how to check my boobs and I seem to remember leaflets showing how to in the doctors surgery. I know several women who’ve had lumps checked out after finding them this way. More leaflets and awareness of the importance of self examination may be the way to go.