Effectiveness of mammography screening for women ages 40 to 49 years

Though consensus has been reached that mammography screening can reduce mortality and is efficient for women age 50-69 the effectiveness for women age 40-49 is still questioned. The results of RCTs and Meta-analyses have been conflicting. There are few studies of the effectiveness of service-screening for the age group 40-49.
In the SCRY study, which is the largest for the age group to date including all of Sweden for an average follow-up of 16 years, mammography screening for women aged 40-49 was shown to be effective for reducing breast cancer mortality

Bibliographic Reference:

Hellquist BN et al.: "Effectiveness of population-based service screening with mammography for women ages 40 to 49 years: evaluation of the Swedish Mammography Screening in Young Women (SCRY) cohort", Cancer. 2010 Oct 1 [Epub ahead of print]

Barbro Hellquist

Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden