Citing ‘anxiety’ as a risk for screening mammography is ‘benevolent sexism,’ expert says
As the debate continues over whether women should receive regular breast cancer screenings before age 50, one expert believes it’s time to put a common excuse to rest.
Citing “anxiety” as a risk factor for screening mammography is a form of “benevolent sexism,” argues Shivani Chaudhry, MD, an assistant professor of radiology at Mount Sinai. Meaning, it assumes that women are “weak” individuals who must be “provided for and protected,” she wrote Monday in Clinical Imaging.
Backing her claim, Chaudry noted recent studies which determined that women’s anxiety over breast imaging is not as prevalent as publicized. And women are willing to accept low levels of such “transient anxiety” as a small sacrifice for the greater benefit of early cancer detection.
Providers should focus on implementing means to minimize apprehension, rather than using it as a reason to withhold imaging services.
“Employing the benevolent sexist view that women are fragile and must be shielded from anxiety robs women of the proven lifesaving effects of screening mammography,” Chaudry wrote June 8. “Focusing on improving methodology to decrease avoidable anxiety is a far superior approach to help women achieve optimal health outcomes.”
Possible remedies could include education, decreasing turnaround times for testing results, and bolstering communication between patients and breast imagers. Radiology departments have also tried everything from aromatherapy to hypnosis to relieve stress levels. And advancements such as digital breast tomosynthesis help drop any call-back rates and corresponding anxiety, she added.
The commentary is the latest in a long-running debate over when women should start receiving breast cancer screenings and how frequently. Groups such as the American College of Physicians and United States Preventive Services Task Force have advocated against screening before age 50. Others, such as the American College of Radiology, have taken the opposite side.
You can read the rest of the commentary in Clinical Imaging—the official publication of the New York Roentgen Society—here.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.