"As a neurosurgeon, I have a skewed view," Rosseau admits. "I see the patients who weren’t screened. They were doing well, then they were doing terribly. Oncologists for breast cancer are starting to say they want more data on this. Breast cancer happens so commonly, we can’t afford to do MRIs on everyone. So the people who have four or more positive nodes — are they the ones with larger tumors? Who are the ones we should be screening early on? Our lack of screening every patient may not be causing excessive death. But it makes sense to find out who the at-risk individuals are.

"We’re trying to move into the next phase of prevention."

Laurence Gonzales is the author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

Learn more about Dr. Rosseau

Originally published in MORE magazine, March 2007