A new study finds most women now follow the recommendation to receive their first screening mammogram at age 40, but there is widespread failure to return promptly for subsequent exams and several sub-populations of women still are not being screened by the recommended age.
The authors say their findings, published September 13, 2004 in the online edition of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, suggest there is little to be gained from population-wide efforts to encourage entry into the screening process, and that public health efforts should focus on the sub-populations at highest risk of inadequate screening.
While annual screening mammography for breast cancer has been demonstrated to save lives and is recommended for women 40 and over by the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology, and the American Medical Association, recent studies demonstrate that relatively few women over 40 actually have screening mammograms every year. Also, no studies have investigated at what age women actually begin screening. James Michaelson, Ph.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) led a team of investigators to assess the long-term pattern of screening mammography use by 72,417 women at the MGH Avon Comprehensive Breast Center between 1985 and 2002.