I think you have missed the point of a new screening test.......

I think you have missed the point of a new screening test.... what is your wife medical specialty? Allow me to speak from my experience.

The scenario for population health is thus.... no breast cancer screening test exists for women under 50 years of age (niche market). As your doctor I could offer a test that will correctly detect at least 7/10 women who actually have breast cancer before they develop a lump or symptoms. It does mean that some will be missed, no test is perfect, but this is an improvement on no screening test at all prior to 50 years of age.

The down side to a new population screening test is specificity.... for BD1 breast assay 12% of women will have a false positive test, which will mean they will undergo further testing and stress to determine that they do not have breast cancer. Whilst a burden for those who have a false positive test, I believe women will accept this risk in the face of dramatically increased early detection rates. And BTW a specificity of 88% is really good for a diagnostic test.

And no one has mentioned the significantly increased survival for breast cancer patients who enter treatment after early detection.

I have known and wish to acknowledge many wonderful women who have died from breast cancer at a young age.

Namste