It seems like an easy decision to make. Screening tests can help you find cancer at an early stage before the disease has the chance to metastasize. If doctors can catch the disease early it can be easier to treat or cure. Screening tests are the more pragmatic decision so why is there such a backlash against cancer screening?

A new paper in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, a 14-member taskforce is advising physicians not to systematically screen women aged 40 to 49 for breast cancer if they're at average risk of getting the disease.

"We've found that the balance between benefits and harms is not in favor of screening women aged 40-49," says Michel Joffres, an SFU health scientist and taskforce member.

"The final decision though should be left to women after discussion with their physician about these tradeoffs.

According to the taskforce regular screening can lead to over diagnosis of breast cancer which leads to unnecessary biopsies, lumpectomies, mastectomies and other interventions. The taskforce advices women aged 50 and over to screen for breast cancer every two or three years.

The Canadian taskforce isn't the only ones calling for a slowdown to cancer screening. The U.S. Preventative Task Force has found that there is little difference in the mortality rate for women who had mammograms and who did not. The same result was found in men who took prostate cancer screenings and those who did not.

Michael Edward Stefanek, Ph.D., associate vice president of collaborative research in the office of the vice president at Indiana University, said in the Journal of Cancer Research that patients should be involved in making the decision to getting a cancer screening. The public should be educated in the harms and benefits of cancer screening.

Not all cancer screenings have potential negative effects. Cervical and colorectal cancer screenings can spot pre-cancerous growths that are easy to remove. The problem begins with other cancers like prostate cancer and breast cancer. Guidelines about who should get mammograms are very general. Most doctors recommend getting a breast cancer screening for women over the age of 50. But consider other factors like family history or having dense breasts. If you're 40 and your family has a history with breast cancer then you would have the same risk as an average 50-year-old.

Today's cancer screening tests are getting more and more sophisticated and the risk is there that they can pick up cancer cells that are benign. The reality of cancer is screening is that it carries its own risk and patients should thoroughly research and consult their physician if they absolutely need to have these tests.