
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991                   TAG: 9102210054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BREAST EXAMS NEARLY USELESS, STUDY FINDS

Breast self-examination has little or no benefit as a screening tool to detect cancer because most women do not do it or perform it incorrectly, according to a study.

The study, conducted in the Seattle area and to be published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that when done properly, the practice was equivalent to decreasing the risk of developing advanced-stage breast cancer by one-third. But researchers reported that only 8 percent of the women did the examination correctly.

Still, cancer experts defended the use of examinations to find some cancers early on.

"Most women are not trained to be physicians, said Polly A. Newcomb, the study's lead author and an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin. To do a thorough exam, you need objectivity. You have to do it systematically. Most women don't."

Newcomb conducted the survey among 209 women with advanced breast cancer in a single medical group practice. But they were representative of women from a large city area, she said.

In fact, Newcomb's study of a control group of 433 healthy women from the general Seattle population had roughly the same results.

A recent British study found breast cancer mortality after six years was virtually the same among 64,000 women offered instruction in breast self-examinations and 127,000 who were not.

The studies were undertaken because the public health policy benefits of breast self-examination have yet to be shown, doctors say.

by CNB