Misleading NHS leaflets risk women into breast cancer surgery

Thousands of women have unnecessarily taken surgery after following the advice found at the National Health Service’s (NHS) new leaflet on breast cancer screening, forcing the UK government to rewrite the print.

The NHS moves to withdraw its leaflet and to create a new one after doctors criticized the information as insufficient and manipulative. Mike Richards, National Cancer Director of the Department of Health, agreed with the medical practitioners’ disapproval of the ad leaflet, Breast Screening: The Facts, and urged the NHS for the immediate pull out of the misleading flier.

The research published states that one in every 2,000 women, who have repeatedly undertaken breast cancer screening in a decade, could be saved from the deadly disease. However, the leaflet failed to mention that 10 healthy women ended up being examined from breast cancer unnecessarily. The leaflet has been condemned for merely promoting the medication advantages and not including any threat information, making it easier to encourage women to take breast cancer screening.

The main writer of the NHS leaflet, Joan Austoker, who is also the Director of Primary Care Education Research at Oxford University, admitted that the publication withholds information about unnecessary treatment for ductal carcinoma in situ, a type of breast cancer.

Ductal carcinoma in situ accounts for 20 per cent of the findings made through screening. Less than 50 per cent of the dormant cancer cells become invasive, but 30 per cent can be medicated with mastectomies.

The other dangers of breast cancer screening include not detecting the tumours and misidentifying healthy cells, so-called false positives.