Pink News: Mammogram Screening Works for Women Ages 40-49

Editor's note: October is- the pink month, or the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month; at this time, published below is a study that suggests mammogram screening for women ages 40 to 49 may help cut risk of death from breast cancer. 

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an annual campaign supported by drug companies, medical organizations and the federal government to raise the public awareness of breast cancer which is diagnosed in more than 175,000 women and kills about 50,000 each year in the United States. 

The campaign seems to be intended to educate the public about the disease, diagnosis and treatment options. One big emphasis is mammogram screening - a controversial issue. Some experts say it does not cut breast cancer risk when it is applied to women under 50; others think otherwise. 

Pink News: Mammogram screening for women ages 40-49 cuts risk of death from breast cancer

A recent study conducted by researchers in Sweden and published in the Sep 29 2010 issue of Cancer found women who received mammogram screening in their 40s were less likely to die from breast cancer. 

Hellquist B.N. and colleagues from the Department of Radiation Sciences at Umeå University compared two groups of women ages 40 to 49, one was invited to receive mammogram screening and the other was not, between 1986 and 2005. Both groups of women participated in the Mammography Screening of Young Women cohort covering all Swedish counties. 

Patients who were diagnosed with breast cancer during the follow-up, screened or not, at ages 40 to 49 years and died subsequently, were counted as cases of breast cancer death. 

The researchers found during the prescreening period, death rates for both groups were not significantly different.  During the study period, 803 breast cancer patients in the screening group (7.3 million person-years) died whereas 1,238 patients died in the control group (8.8 million person-years). 

The researchers concluded "mammography screening for women ages 40 to 49 years was efficient for reducing breast cancer mortality." 

One thing that could have introduced errors into the study is that the researchers considered person-years together, a health observer suggested. This means, the sizes of two groups may not have been the same, and the exact periods of follow-up for both groups may also be different even though this study method is not uncommon. 

Another recent study conducted by Norwegian researchers found mammogram screening may only cut the risk of death from breast cancer by 10 percent. 

Mette kalager and colleagues compared 40,075 women screened and unscreened from 1996 through 2005.  The screened women received screening mammography every two years. 

They reported in the Sep 23 2010 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that the death risk was reduced by 28 percent in the screened group, compared to a 18 percent reduction in the unscreened group.  Thus, the net reduction by screening is about 10 percent. 

Jørgensen KJ and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark conducted a similar study of women ages 44 to 74 and found women were screened had their risk of death from breast cancer reduced by one percent while those who did not receive the screening had their risk reduced by 2 percent over the years of follow-up. This means screening did not reduce the risk of breast cancer death. 

The study published in the March 23 2010 issue of British Medical Journal found there was no benefits in women ages 35 to 55 and those ages 75 to 84 either. 

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in November 2009 announced that it recommends that women should begin biennial screening for breast cancer at age 50, instead of 40 recommended in the previous version of recommendations by the agency.  

The agency said that screening women ages 40 to 49 may cause more harm than good as mammogram screening is not 100% accurate and it can cause a false positive diagnosis leading to unnecessary further diagnosis and treatment and mental stress. 

The recommendations are largely ignored by the medical circle, according to some surveys.  Some women and doctors are outraged by the recommendation and medical organizations encourage doctors to ignore it and continue to screen women starting age 40. 

Breast cancer screening is a big issue and each year at this time, people wear pink not only to support survivors, but also to encourage women to receive mammogram screening for early diagnosis.

Reporting by Jimmy Downs and editing by Rachel Stockton