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Cancer Society advises annual mammograms after 40
March 23, 1997
Web posted at: 1:26 p.m. EST (1826 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The American Cancer Society issued new guidelines Sunday for mammograms, recommending that women in their 40s have the cancer screening performed annually.
Old guidelines recommended mammograms every one to two years beginning at age 40, and every year beginning at age 50. A panel of experts made the new recommendation earlier this month, and the society's board of directors approved it this weekend.
Annual mammograms for younger women, the panel said, should save lives -- possibly as many as 10,000 in the next five years.
"The current average two-year interval between mammograms may be too long for this age group and their faster-growing cancers," said Dr. Marilyn Leitch, a surgical oncologist from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
When a woman should begin mammography screening has been hotly debated since 1993, when the National Cancer Institute backed off its previous notion that women should begin the screenings at age 40.
The institute questioned whether mammograms actually saved lives in younger women, or simply led to unnecessary treatment and elevated anxiety levels. For women aged 50 and above, there is general agreement that mammography reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer by about one-third.
The issue took on new significance in 1996 with the appearance of eight new studies of mammography in younger women. While the data were mixed, the bottom line was that mammography appeared to lower the breast cancer death rate for women in their 40s by about 18 percent.
Based on those findings, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on early mammography in January, anticipating that they would issue new guidelines. But the participants in that conference failed to reach a consensus, deciding to leave the decision on when to begin mammograms up to women and their doctors.
Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute, disagreed with the outcome of the conference.
"To my mind, it does look significant, and women need to know that," Klausner said of the new studies. "That needs to be clearly part of the information that woman and health providers have in making these important decisions."
Scientists balked because the new studies showed most that mammography benefited older women more than younger women, leading to questions of whether it was really early screening that made the difference.
But backers of the new research point out that since the death rate from breast cancer in younger women is lower, it would necessarily take time for a lower death rate in younger women to be observed.
The National Cancer Institute has asked its advisory board to issue mammography guidelines. The institute is expected to release a statement in about a month.
Correspondent Jeff Levine contributed to this report.
Related story:
- Panel does little to settle mammogram debate - January 23, 1997
Related sites:
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- American Cancer Society
- National Cancer Institute's CancerNet
- National Institutes of Health
- Breast Cancer Network
- CDC Breast Cancer-Related Projects
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