More harm than good?

Re “The excessive focus on mammography,” Opinion, Nov. 3

Gilbert Welch argues against excessive use of mammography because the test identifies some cancers that will never develop to cause symptoms or death. I also argue against too much dependence on mammography, but for the opposite reason. My cancerous breast tumor could not be seen on my mammogram, and I received a negative result. Fortunately, I could feel the peanut-sized tumor with my fingers and pursued necessary medical treatment.

Mammography is far from perfect because it misses cancers, not because it detects too many.

Cathleen Watkins

Glendale

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Primum non nocere -- first do no harm -- is the guiding principle for all physicians. But Welch harms with his odd diatribe against mammography.

By questioning the value of breast cancer screening, which Welch admits saves lives, he confuses the women who would be helped most by mammography.

Women who are already being screened regularly probably won’t buy Welch’s argument that mammography “finds too many cancers.” It is the women who are not now being screened, and should be, who contribute to the statistics of morbidity and death because of breast cancer. If even one such woman accepts Welch’s faulty logic as an excuse to avoid screening, and dies as a result, his commentary has done far more harm than good.

William Audeh MD

Santa Monica

The writer is a medical oncologist at the Saul and Joyce Brandman Breast Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.