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Government-Run Screening Programs Might Lead To Overtreatment Of Breast Cancer, Danish Study Says
One in three breast cancer patients identified in certain nations" public screening programs might have undergone unnecessary treatment, according to a study published Friday in BMJ, the AP/Google.com reports. For the study, Karsten Jorgensen and Peter Gotzsche of Copenhagen"s Nordic Cochrane Centre examined breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after the launch of government-run screening programs in parts of Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Norway and Sweden. The programs usually test women ages 50 to 69.According to the AP/Google.com, effective screening programs should detect more cases and result in a decline in advanced cancer cases detected in older women, whose cancers would have been caught in earlier screenings. However, the study found that the national screening systems simply detected thousands more cases than previously identified.Experts say that overtreatment of cancer occurs wherever there are widespread screening programs, including in the U.S. Some cancers develop too slowly to ever cause symptoms or death, the AP/Google.com reports. However, it is impossible to determine which cancers will be deadly, so all detected cases are treated. Jorgensen said that there is "significant harm in making women cancer patients without good reason" and that the "information needs to get to women so they can make an informed choice."Gilbert Welch of the VA Outcomes Group and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Research wrote in an accompanying editorial that although mammography "undoubtedly helps some women," it "hurts others." Welch wrote that it is "one of medicine"s "close calls," ... where different people in the same situation might reasonably make different choices."Britain"s National Health Service recently stopped distributing breast cancer screening pamphlets in response to criticism that they included too little information on cancer overtreatment. Laura Bell of Cancer Research UK said that although the organization still urges women to be screened, it is important that they be made aware of potential benefits and harms (Cheng, AP/Google.com, 7/9).

Funding Allocated For Hospice Care, Wales
Health Minister Edwina Hart announced the allocation of ÷£4million Assembly Government funding for hospices and palliative care services across Wales.
News of the day
Global Public Health Threat Continues From Lead-Based Consumer Paint
Although lead content in paint has been restricted in the United States since 1978, University of Cincinnati (UC) environmental health researchers say in major countries from three continents there is still widespread failure to acknowledge its danger and companies continue to sell consumer paints that contain dangerous levels of lead.
Mental Health

New Guidelines To Standardise Access Criteria For IVF Treatment

The National Infertility Awareness Campaign (NIAC) welcomed the document "Standardising Access Criteria to NHS Fertility Treatment"1 produced by Infertility Network UK (I N UK) and funded by the Department of Health. The NICE Guideline issued in 2004 recommended that eligible couples should receive three full cycles of IVF or ICSI NHS treatment, and defines a cycle as one which includes frozen embryo transfers (FET), but more than five years on there remains considerable disparity not only in the number of cycles being funded by the Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) but equally importantly in the access criteria applied by the PCTs in determining who can receive treatment. Recent measures announced by the Government to encourage implementation of the Guideline have led to an improvement in the provision in some areas but more needs to be done by Primary Care Trusts in England to ensure that patients have equal and timely access to the full range of treatment recommended by NICE, and to tackle the ongoing variations in provision that exist across the country. Clare Lewis-Jones, Chair of NIAC and Chief Executive of Infertility Network UK said "Although there has been an improvement recently in the provision of treatment by some PCTs, there still remains considerable variation in the criteria used to determine whether or not couples can access treatment. We welcome the recent measures announced by the Government to encourage implementation of the Guideline but particularly with the move towards single embryo transfer (SET) more needs to be done by the PCTs to fund three full cycles as recommended in the NICE Guideline and to standardise the access criteria they use to determine who can access NHS treatment and allow couples to have the treatment they need to help them have their family. It is totally unacceptable that patients are denied treatment simply because of where they live or on the basis of their age, and we urge all PCTs to implement these new recommendations and make access to fertility services fair, consistent, cost effective and clinically effective across the country." 1 The document "Standardising Access Criteria to NHS Fertility Treatment" produced by Infertility Network UK can be accessed via the Infertility Network UK Website http://www.infertilitynetworkuk.com Infertility Network UK


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