An answer on preventative cancer screenings

Dr. Jon Mikel Iñarritu has kindly answered my question about which preventative screenings we should be doing to detect cancer by writing a post here.

I must admit I'm a little surprised at the mammography guidelines, which he states to be:

-Screening mammography, with or without clinical breast examination, every 1-2 years for women aged 50 and older.
-Discuss with women in their 40s.
-Women should be screened until their predicted life expectancy is less than 10 years.

I'm surprised because:

-I had a baseline mammogram at 35, then had an annual one at 40. That mammogram at 40 showed some differences in one breast, so they checked it every six months for 2 years and only now have returned me to an annual-only mammograms.

-I thought it was pretty normal to start mammograms in your 40s, even if you hadn't had a baseline, and I'm surprised that now they say to wait until your 50s. I was under the impression that the number
of women who get breast cancer in their 40s is not insignificant.

-I'm surprised to see that the recommendation is for screenings to stop when a woman gets old enough that she'll likely die in ten years anyway. Am I reading that right? Wow. Maybe I'm just naive or mixing my metaphors...but exactly why are we willing to stop trying to catch and prevent fatal diseases in old people, but we're not willing to let them have assisted suicide if they want it? Isn't it about the same philosophy?

Anyway, thanks go to Dr. Iñarritu for his informative, responsive post.