Four European groups are taking aim at the European Union (EU) for what they allege is a "missed opportunity" to fully research the pros and cons of personalized breast cancer screening, according to a 3 March report in BMJ.
Their views were published in a letter in the Journal International de Médicine. The groups cited problems with the EU-funded My Personal Breast Screening (MyPeBS) trial, which was designed to show the noninferiority of risk-based breast screening to current age-based national screening programs. The authors of the article are from the U.K. charity Healthwatch; Belgium's Group de Recherche et d'Action pour la Santé; No Grazie, an association of Italian epidemiologists and scientists; and the French group Cancer Rose.
MyPeBS includes 85,000 women 40 to 70 years of age in those four countries who were randomized to their national program or for screening based on their personal risk, using characteristics such as breast density, genetic profile, personal and family history, and age.
