Information can help people decide to forgo cancer screening, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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When given appropriate information about mammogram screenings, including benefits, harms, and who should consider screening cessation, a cohort of older women largely made rational choices for themselves, a study by Nancy Schoenborn, a geriatrics expert at Johns Hopkins, has shown.

Schoenborn: We found that it was good, that it didn't turn people off from mammograms in general. People who are healthy did not intend to stop inappropriately which is not what we want. We don't want people just to be turned off from mammograms in general. We want the people for whom it's appropriate to continue. But we did find that people who are older and who have poorer health, so the group that probably should think more carefully about stopping, are the ones that responded they're more likely to consider stopping.   :31

Schoenborn says evidence based information on who might consider stopping screening mammography that is tailored to individual circumstances is the most acceptable rather than age-based or other single factor guidance. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.