Kopans Defends Mammography Screening in Letter to The New Yorker

The role of mammography in the early detection of breast cancer was strongly defended by ACR Fellow Daniel B. Kopans, MD, director of breast imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, in a letter to the editor published in the January 10 edition of The New Yorker. Kopans' letter was in response to an article in the magazine's December 13 issue titled "The Picture Problem."

"The capabilities of mammography have certainly, in some cases, been exaggerated, as [article author] Malcolm Gladwell suggests," writes Kopans, a member of the ACR's Committee on Breast Cancer. "But Gladwell errs in the other direction; he overemphasizes the complexities of mammography and trivializes the benefits. Mammograms can be difficult to interpret. And yet, in some trials, mammography screening has been shown to decrease the death rate from breast cancer by twenty-five to thirty per cent."

"None of us is trumpeting victory, but this is a major improvement … that is due, in great measure, to mammography screening," Kopans continues. "We and other researchers are working hard to find ways to detect cancers, but women, informed that the test is far from perfect, should still be encouraged to take advantage of its potential benefits today."

Click here to read Gladwell's article from the December 13 issue of The New Yorker. (The magazine's letters to the editor are not available online.)