Fewer American Women Reporting for Mammograms

September 16, 2005 -- Not as many American women are getting mammograms to screen for breast cancer as previously thought, a new study found. Only two-thirds of New Hampshire women 40 and older get mammograms every one or two years, as suggested by most physicians.

Earlier numbers were based on answers women gave when asked whether they went for mammograms; the new study tracked women’s actual visits to 40 of New Hampshire’s mammography facilities. The study appears in the Oct. 15 edition of Cancer. Screening can cut breast cancer death rates by 30 percent in women 50 and older, and by 17 percent in women in their 40s, trials have found.

Two Institute of Medicine reports, Saving Women's Lives: Strategies for Improving Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis and Mammography and Beyond: Developing Technologies for the Early Detection of Breast Cancer: A Non-Technical Summary, examine how mammography can be used to detect breast cancer and newer measures could be used in conjunction with mammograms. Improving Breast Imaging Quality Standards recommends ways to improve the technical quality of mammography.

• Saving Women's Lives: Strategies for Improving Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis (2005)
• Mammography and Beyond: Developing Technologies for the Early Detection of Breast Cancer: A Non-Technical Summary (2001)
• Improving Breast Imaging Quality Standards (2005)
• Webcast: Mammography and Beyond: Developing Technologies for Early Detection of Breast Cancer (2001)

• Saving Women's Lives: Strategies for Improving Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Project