Dr. Steven Woloshin and Dr. Lisa Schwartz criticized Komen's 2011 advertising campaign as misrepresenting survival statistics regarding breast cancer when it is identified at an early stage.

The following statement from the ad is inaccurate, according to the two professors: "The five-year survival rate for breast cancer when caught early is 98%. When it's not? 23%." The statement misleads women about the benefits of mammography, without warning them about the risks of overdiagnosis or having an unnecessary biopsy, they wrote.

"Mammography certainly sounds better when stated in terms of improving five-year survival -- from 23% to 98%, a difference of 75 percentage points -- rather than in terms of its actual benefit -- a reduction in the chance that a woman in her 50s will die from breast cancer over the next 10 years from 0.53% to 0.46%, a difference of 0.07 percentage points," they wrote.

The Komen ads failed to explain that for every life saved by mammography, approximately two to 10 women are overdiagnosed, Woloshin and Schwartz added. Between 20% and 50% of women who are screened annually for a 10-year period will undergo a biopsy due to a false-positive finding, they wrote.

Misleading survival statistics give women false hope about the benefits of mammography screening, they concluded, and such behavior by the nonprofit breast cancer organization is "not very charitable."

JNCI study revives debate over mammography's mortality benefit, July 17, 2012

20 years of screening data suggests mammography works, March 21, 2012

Digital breast tomosynthesis will replace mammography, March 1, 2012

Mammo screening reduces breast cancer mortality by almost half, December 6, 2011

Mammo surveillance improves cancer survival, October 3, 2011