Annual Mammograms for Early Breast Cancer Detection
A recent study backs up the idea that, in order to help detect breast cancers early, women over 40 should receive a mammography annually as opposed to every two years. According to a University of Pittsburgh study, women who had annual mammograms had a considerably lower rate of later-stage tumor revelations than those who spread out their scans across two or more years.
According to study lead author Dr. Margarita Zuley, a Pitt radiology professor, “annual mammograms are crucial for early detection of breast cancer, which increases the likelihood of survival, decreases harms to patients because treatment may not need to be as intense, makes recovery easier, and can lower the cost of care.” The new research is related to conflicting recommendations regarding the recommended number of mammograms, which can be perplexing for many women in their 40s. While the authoritative U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends mammograms every two years starting at age forty, the American College of Radiology’s guidelines suggest women over 40 to obtain a mammography once a year.
Study Findings and Guidelines Conflict
Zuley’s team used a sizable institutional database for the current study, which comprised over 8,100 women who had at least one mammography before being diagnosed with breast cancer. Zuley and colleagues discovered that the number of patients with breast cancer who had a late-stage diagnosis (stage IIB or worse) increased in direct proportion to the gap between mammograms, as they reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Compared to 14% of women who had mammograms every two years and 19% of women who received screenings “intermittently” (with at least a 27-month gap between scans), just 9% of women who had yearly screenings had late-stage cancer.
Challenges and Future Directions
Of course, a woman who undergoes more frequent mammograms is more likely to receive a false-positive result, which could lead to needless anxiety and medical treatments. According to a university news release, Zuley stated, “We acknowledge that there may be negative effects from calling women back for further screening, but I don’t think that these negative effects outweigh the risk of missing cancers and women dying as a result.” She is also the head of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Breast Imaging Division.
“We’re pushing on all fronts to find the most accurate and cost-effective way to care for our patients,” she continued. “We’re also testing screening tools that have lower false positives than mammography.”
