American Cancer Society updates mammogram guidelines

The American Cancer Society has issued new recommendations on when women should get mammograms and how frequently they should get them. This is in contrast to the previous guidelines which stated that women should get them at age 40.

In a paper published in JAMA on Tuesday, the ACS made the following updates to its guidelines:

• Increased the minimum age at which a woman of average risk should start getting routine mammograms to 45 (it was previously 40).

• Changed the frequency of when mammograms should be given. Women ages 45-54 should get mammograms annually and those 55 and older should get them every other year.

• Recommended that doctors stop screening women with a life expectancy of less than 10 years.

• Recommended against routine clinical breast examination.