Younger Women Choose Breast Screens
31 March 2010 - Younger women are likely to attend breast screening if the choice is offered to them, according to a study of 50,000 women co-ordinated by ICR scientists.
Between 1991 and 2004, women aged 40 or 41 and living near one of 23 NHS breast screening units in England, Wales and Scotland were invited to begin regular annual screening up to age 48.
Each particular round of screening invitations received a response of about 69 per cent. About 81 per cent of the women attended at least one routine screen, while about half attended at least six screens.
The NHS Breast Screening Programme currently provides free mammograms every three years for all women in the UK aged 50 and over, but the government is planning to reduce the minimum invitation age to 47 by 2012.
“The attendance rate among women in their forties was similar to the current over-50s screening program, which has about a 75 per cent uptake,” says lead author Ms Louise Johns from the ICR’s Cancer Screening Evaluation Unit. “These results are important, as when the minimum age for screening is lowered, a high uptake will be necessary if it is to have an impact on breast cancer deaths.”
The latest study is part of the Age trial, which is investigating the effects of screening younger women on death rates from breast cancer. Ten year follow-up results from this trial, which were published in 2006, found that the reduction in mortality was too small to be considered statistically significant, but the data are also being re-examined after a longer follow-up time.
