An American federal advisory panel recommended on Monday that women should start breast cancer screening at 50 instead of 40, as it has been until now, but doctors say that they’re not ready to make such a drastic change.

The recommendations, issued Monday by a federal advisory panel, reversed widely promoted guidelines and were intended to reduce overtreatment, the New York Times reports. The panel said the benefits of screening women in their 40s — saving one life for every 1,904 women screened for 10 years — were outweighed by the potential for unnecessary tests and treatment, and the accompanying anxiety. Women considered at high risk should continue to have early screening, the panel said.

Despite the new recommendations, many doctors said that they were simply not ready to make such a drastic change.

“It’s kind of hard to suggest that we should stop examining our patients and screening them,” Dr Annekathryn Goodman, director of the fellowship program in gynecological oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, said. “I would be cautious about changing a practice that seems to work.”

Several doctors said that while they understood the panel’s risk-benefit analysis, their patients would not see it that way. “My patients tell me they can live with a little anxiety and distress but they can’t live with a little cancer,” Dr Carolyn Runowicz, director of the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Connecticut, pointed out.

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