(NYT) Despite new recommendations that women should start breast screening at 50, rather than 40, many doctors said 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," said Dr. Annekathryn Goodman, director of the fellowship program in gynecological oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. "I’m uneasy with that recommendation. I would be cautious about changing a practice that seems to work."

The recommendations, issued Monday by a federal advisory panel, reversed long-standing, widely promoted guidelines and were intended to reduce over-treatment. The panel said the benefits of screening women in their 40s – saving one life for every 1,904 women screened for 10 years – are outweighed by the potential for unnecessary tests and treatment, and the anxiety that might cause.

Several doctors said Tuesday 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," said Dr. Carolyn Runowicz, director of the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Connecticut.

The idea that one cancer death is prevented for roughly 2,000 women screened "doesn’t mean anything until you’re the one," said Dr. Jacques Moritz, director of gynecology at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan. "No doubt about it, I’m going to say, ‘Well, you really don’t need it,' and they’re going to say, ‘You don’t understand, I’m getting the mammogram, I’m not going to take the chance to be the one person that has it.'"

Most of the doctors, however, said they would inform younger women that the recommendations said they did not need mammograms if they were low-risk. They said they would also point out that groups like the American Cancer Society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are sticking to the earlier guidelines.

"If we don’t give them both views, they will not trust our judgments," said Dr. Ozgul Muneyyirci-Delale, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at SUNY Downstate.

A few doctors, however, could see benefits to the recommendations for some women.

Dr. Deborah Gahr, a gynecologist in private practice in New York, said the guidelines would make the estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of women who resist getting mammograms more confident in their decision. "In a sense, that’s good," Gahr said. "Nothing is black and white in medicine."