GLENDALE - Monday afternoon found Gloria Wahl undergoing another round of exhausting chemotherapy. When the session was complete, all she wanted to do was take a long nap.
 
"It takes over your life," she said of her ongoing battle with breast cancer. "It really does."
 
Gloria found out she had breast cancer this spring after undergoing her annual mammogram. She had a cancerous tumor removed along with her lymph nodes.

Now she alternates between radiation and chemotherapy treatments. But, she wouldn't have had the mammogram that found her cancer under new federal guidelines set to be published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Under those guidelines, the screening would have waited another year.
 
"I'd have another year of the cancer growing in me, and me not knowing that," Gloria said, her voice rising. "I gotta think that a year more before they found it, I would have been in a world of hurt."
 
The guidelines penned by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force say:
 
--Most women in their 40's should not routinely get mammograms.
 
--Women 50 to 74 should get a mammogram every other year until they turn 75.
 
--Women 75 and older need not undergo mammograms.
 
--The value of breast self exams are of no value.
 
Gloria Wahl is treated by Dr. Scott Maul of Oncology Alliance. Maul hopes the new recommendations don't prompt women to dismiss the value of mammography.
 
"Mammography is absolutely proven to save lives," Maul said as he stood beside his patient. "It catches breast cancer at an early stage and presumably at the most curable stage."
 
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force influences coverage of screening tests by Medicare and many insurance companies. Dr. Maul cautions, "It is important to remember that these sorts of guidelines are not one size fits all measures."
 
Maul suggests a measure of common sense for women.
 
"It's very important for a woman to discuss these guidelines with her doctor and make sure that her screening strategies are individualized for her own care," he said.
 
The American Cancer Society has already issued a statement disputing the new guidelines and urging women over 40 to continue routine mammogram screenings.