Should I go ahead with my wife's annual mammogram?

Old Sailor, you must make up your own mind, but perhaps check Llama’s comments. ‘Metastatic cancer’ is the description for cancer originating in one part of the body that has spread (metastasised) to another part of the body. This would normally mean that the friend’s wife had quite advanced cancer in another area that had by that point spread to the breast – not that within a year she had developed an aggressive fatal breast cancer. It may be that her death could not have been prevented by a mammogram. It’s tricky!

OldSailor: You're welcome. Of course they would allow you to accompany her into the exam room. As always, I just offer up information that I know. Good luck.

Margaret: Thank you for your explanation of metastatic breast cancer so that OldSailor will have that info. My friend was not told by her oncologist that she had that type of breast cancer, unfortunately. She was very angry with her specialist, but it was already too late.

OldSailor

#1 Yesterday I was roundly bollocked - as we say over here - by Dr. Daughter for being rude about mammograms. She rebuked me further that dementia patients have equal rights to medical care (she's telling me?!), and said an ultrasound would be the way to go if you decide you would like your wife to be screened - which I see another poster has already suggested. (I'm still not getting a bloody mammogram, sulk pout).

#2 I thought I would look up the statistics. The bad news is that at 75 your wife has just entered the age group at greatest risk of developing breast cancer. The much more cheerful news is that in this group, women aged 75-79, the incidence of breast cancer is 451 per 100,000 women. So unless there is a concerning family history, her odds are pretty good.

Countrymouse,
I will agree that she deserves fair and just medical treatment and I do not intend to deprive her of that. I just cant see putting her thru some of the devastating treatments like chemo. I feel that would just add to her mental and physical problems and it may not extend her life.
She has recently started meds for her kidney function and our PCP and I will do whatever we can to make her comfortable and keep her going. But after we have seen so many of our old friends and family members pass and what they went thru I just can't see her throwing up blood, etc. (that was a friends cancer), urinating black liquid(another friend), and who knows what else is out there. That is not living, that is torture.
I don't want to be rude to anyone, but there are just too many in the medical field that believe as long as there is heart beat the person is living. Perhaps in some cases, yes. But in just too many, No.
I will keep her as long as I can but I will not torture her with teeth extractions, hair falling out, critical weakness, tubes and wires going in and out of her and she not know why.
Thanks again to all.

IDK, we don't even do mammograms annually here unless there is a strong family history, we do every other year.

We're invited to attend them every three years between age 50 and age 70; besides that, it's at your GP's discretion. I've never heard of anyone being refused one if they asked for it.

This is the page from the NHS website trying (bless the little dears) to support informed choice:

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Benefits and risks
The NHS offers screening to save lives from breast cancer. Screening does this by finding breast cancers at an early stage, when they're too small to see or feel.
But it does have some risks.
Screening also doesn't prevent you getting breast cancer, and it may not help if you already have advanced stage breast cancer.
It's up to you to decide if you want to have breast screening.

Benefits of breast screening
Breast screening helps identify breast cancer early. The earlier the condition is found, the better the chances of surviving it.
You're also less likely to need a mastectomy (breast removal) or chemotherapy if breast cancer is detected at an early stage.

Risks of breast screening

Overtreatment
Some women who have screening will be diagnosed and treated for breast cancer that would never have otherwise caused them harm.
Read about breast cancer treatment, including potential side effects.

Unnecessary distress
Following screening, about 1 in 25 women will be called back for further assessment.
Being called back doesn't mean you definitely have cancer. The first mammogram may have been unclear.
Most women who receive an abnormal screening result are found not to have breast cancer. These women may experience unnecessary worry and distress.
About 1 in 4 women who are called back for further assessment are diagnosed with breast cancer.

Missed diagnosis
There's a small chance that you'll receive a negative (all clear) mammogram result when cancer is present.
Breast screening picks up most breast cancers, but it misses breast cancer in about 1 in 2,500 women screened.

Radiation
A mammogram is a type of X-ray, and X-rays can, very rarely, cause cancer.
During a mammogram, your breasts are exposed to a small amount of radiation (0.4 millisieverts, or mSv).
For comparison, in the UK, a person receives a dose of 2.2 mSv a year from natural background radiation.
But the benefits of screening and early detection are thought to outweigh the risks of having the X-ray.

Weighing up the possible benefits and risks of breast screening
There's debate about how many lives are saved by breast screening and how many women are diagnosed with cancers that wouldn't have become life threatening.
The numbers below are the best estimates from a group of experts who have reviewed the evidence.

Saving lives from breast cancer
Screening saves about 1 life from breast cancer for every 200 women who are screened.
This adds up to about 1,300 lives saved from breast cancer each year in the UK.

Finding cancers that would never have caused a woman harm
About 3 in every 200 women screened every 3 years from the age of 50 to 70 are diagnosed with a cancer that would never have been found without screening, and would never have become life threatening.
This adds up to about 4,000 women each year in the UK who are offered treatment they didn't need.

What this means
Overall, for every 1 woman who has her life saved from breast cancer, about 3 women are diagnosed with a cancer that would never have become life threatening.
Researchers are trying to find better ways to tell which women have breast cancers that will be life threatening and which women have cancers that won't.

Who's at higher risk of breast cancer?
The causes of breast cancer aren't fully understood, making it difficult to say why one woman may develop breast cancer and another may not.
But there are risk factors known to affect your likelihood of developing breast cancer.
Some of these you can't do anything about, but there are some you can change.
Learn about the risk factors for breast cancer.

Page last reviewed: 27/03/2018
Next review due: 27/03/2021

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Sigh. So that's helpful, then...

I would not put someone her age and condition through breast cancer treatment so the test is also not something I would allow. No testing for anything we would not treat anyway is our rule.
On the other hand, some private pay medical insurance companies require specific sets of yearly tests to determine rates, eligibility etc. I'm not even sure it's legal for them to do so, but I'm hearing more and more about them doing it. Workers comp has required some testing of my husband from time to time that I would not normally have had done. His condition is related to a work related brain injury. I don't like it, it's a horrible tortuous inconvenience for all of us, but, they require it to continue paying for his injury related medical care and his medication alone would cost nearly $4,000 a month, so we jump through their hoops as required.

WOW! Did I ever open a can of worms with this. The information I have gotten is incredible. We see our PCP Monday for another sudden condition involving the under side of her breast and the Mamo will be discussed then.
Unless he has some very convincing arguments DW will not be getting any more Mamo's.
I will continue providing what ever care and assistance I can and seek out help with what I cannot.
Thank you all for your help.

OldSailor: If underside of breast is a rash, my late mom had that and got an RX.