Screening halves the risk of dying from breast cancer, finds a new study.
Screening halves the risk of dying from breast cancer, finds a new study. The findings reaffirmed the importance and efficacy of mammography, said University of Melbourne Research Fellow Dr Carolyn Nickson and colleagues from the Melbourne School of Population Health.
The study followed about 4,000 women in a study of the BreastScreen program in Western Australia.
It focused on women aged 50-69 years, who are in the target age range for screening. It included 427 cases where women had died from breast cancer and 3,650 control women who were still alive when the other women died.
The research team compared screening attendance between the two groups and found screening was much lower among women who had died from breast cancer, a finding that is consistent with a similar study from South Australia and with numerous studies from around the world.
Comparison with similar studies showed an average estimate of a 49 percent reduced risk of dying.
Some other studies including studies from Australia claim that screening doesn't reduce risk of dying from breast cancer. However, these studies do not compare outcomes for individual women.
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"It is important that Australian women have accurate information about the pros and cons of participating in BreastScreen. The findings of this study may help women decide whether to participate.
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The study has been published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
Source-ANI