Report of the BMJ's full editorial
committee - 7 February 2000
Present: C. Martyn
Michael O'Brien
Hazel Inskip
Gavin Yamey
Screening mammography: Women's reactions to false positive
results and ductal carcinoma in-situ
Decision: Revise to author
Nature of decision: Unanimous
Summary of the points:
-
We thought that this was an interesting and clearly written study.
-
We have some doubts about the generalisability of the findings.
-
We would like the authors to explain current US practices for breast screening,
in particular how the women taking part are warned about the dangers of
false positives.
-
We had a few minor queries. We could not understand what the weighted column
in table 1 meant. How did you weight the demographic data? In view of the
recent article in the Lancet we wondered whether the "correct answer" for
the reduction in breast cancer attributable to screening might need to
be altered.