Table 2.

Perceived Benefits From Cancer Screening Independent of Mortality Benefit

Type of Benefit	Quotes
Quality of life	Regarding a patient who had a large breast cancer in the absence of screening: “I don’t think that we could have changed her mortality. I think she was still gonna pass away, she had other health problems but the mass was coming out of her chest, [if caught earlier] maybe they could have just done a lumpectomy… she may have had a better quality of life at the end.”
Less invasive treatment	“The patient may still die at the same age regardless of whether we do a simple lumpectomy at age 75 or do a more invasive, aggressive surgery or other treatment at age 78 or 80… at the end the survival may be the same but how [do] you measure the quality of those years in terms of physical impact of the treatment as well as the mental impact?”
Reassurance	“It’s easy to dismiss those things when you look at them in an abstract standpoint, but if you are really anxious about breast cancer and you really want that reassurance of the mammogram it can mean an awful lot.”
Cancer diagnosis may trigger positive changes	“[As the patient], I [may] want to know I have a stage 2 breast cancer and maybe repair relationships with family or behave differently towards others.”