Other experts, however, said the study will not affect their continuing recommendation that women perform self-examinations between their regular routine breast screening tests.
SUPPORT FOR SELF-EXAMS
It remains important for women to be familiar with their own anatomy, and certainly teaching signs and symptoms of cancer is of value, said Dr. Benjamin Anderson, a breast surgeon and the clinical medical director of the Breast Care and Cancer Research Program at the University of Washington. We will continue to recommend monthly self-examination as part of routine breast health care. We will not be abandoning that aspect.
Anderson said many instances occur in which self-examination by women picked up cancers and got the process (of treatment) started.
Dr. Kimberly Van Zee, breast cancer surgeon at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said the study did not determine self-examination to be of no value, but teaching the procedure as a broad public health measure may not be useful in countries where mammography and other breast cancer screening exams are not available.
Among motivated women who do regular breast self-exam and are very proficient at doing it, it might make a difference, but this study did not test that, Van Zee said.
My approach is not to discourage a patient from doing breast self-exam, she said. But she said a woman needs to be told it is not the be-all and end-all. She needs to have other screening done on a regular basis.
</center>
).
Men are often overlooked in these reminders.
