Mortality reduction from mammographic screening

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take home message - Women who are in a screening program who develop breast cancer have only about a 5% risk of death from that cancer. Women who are not regularly screened and who develop a breast cancer have a much higher risk of dying from that cancer, just as in 1969, before mammography was introduced, about 50%. Most inportant, 50% of women dying of breast cancer were diagnosed before the age of 50. Thus, the median age of women dying of their breast cancer was 49 at diagnosis, although they might have lived into their 50s.

 

 

 

 

Bibliographic Reference:

Web ML et al.: "A failure analysis of invasive breast cancer: Most deaths from disease occur in women not regularly screened", Cancer. 2013 Sep 9 [Epub ahead of print]

 

 

 

 

Blake Cady

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

 

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