Many women fail to get regular mammograms

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TweetMany women fail to get regular mammograms



NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More than one-third of New Hampshire women eligible for mammography have either never had the breast cancer screening test or have not been tested in more than two years, a new study shows.



The findings suggest to investigators that other studies may have overestimated the number of women who get screened for breast cancer regularly.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends women over 40 have a screening mammogram every one to two years.

Most studies investigating rates of breast cancer screening rely on reports from women themselves, often months after the fact, and such studies also frequently look at only a single health care setting.

In the current study, Dr. Patricia Carney and colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School used 2000 New Hampshire census data and information from the New Hampshire Mammography Network (NHMN) to follow all women 40 and older in the state for a 27-month period, determining if they had undergone a mammogram during that time.

Registries like the NHMN, they explain in the journal Cancer, "provide a more comprehensive picture of the process of screening as it actually occurs in community-based settings, which is the predominant model for breast cancer detection in the U.S.

The researchers found 36 percent of women over 40 had either never had a mammogram or had not had the test in more than 27 months. Twenty-one percent of women 80 and older had breast cancer screening at least every two years, compared to about 70 percent of women aged 40 to 69.

A previous study covering the same time period found 82 percent of New Hampshire women 50 and older reported having had a mammogram within the previous two years, Carney and her team note.

"Routine mammography screening may be occurring less often than believed when survey data alone are used," Carney and her team conclude.

"An important, compelling concern" is the reason why women did not return for additional screening after only one or two mammograms, they say. This issue deserves additional research.

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