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A new study offers a reality check to anyone who says a mammogram saved her life. For every woman in whom mammography detected a breast cancer that was destined to become large and potentially life-threatening — the kind that screening is intended to head off — about four are diagnosed with one that would never have threatened their health. But the surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation that follows such diagnoses can be traumatic, disfiguring, toxic, or even life-shortening even as it’s unnecessary. Prior estimates of how many mammogram-detected cancers are overdiagnoses, meaning they don’t need to be treated, have ranged from 0 to 54 percent. (Begley, 10/12)

More than half of breast cancers newly diagnosed in the United States are likely cases of mistaken identity that subject women to needless anxiety, treatment and expense, researchers reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study also found that the value of mammograms as a life-saving tool has been significantly overstated. Instead, the introduction of more effective treatments should get most of the credit for improving survival rates among women diagnosed with breast cancer, the researchers concluded. (Healy, 10/12)

A rising number of American women are planning to have children someday, despite generally falling birth rates in the country in recent years, according to new numbers released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday. Half of US women between the ages of 15 and 44 say they intend to have children in the future, up from 46 percent in 2002. And experts say that could be a sign that future parents are more confident in the economy — and with that, their ability to handle the financial responsibilities of having kids. (Thielking, 10/13)