Healthcare providers use mammograms to check a woman’s breasts for breast cancer.
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Most women should be screened for breast cancer every other year starting at age 40, a decade earlier than previously recommended, according to draft guidelines posted by tuesday government supported group experts.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says its new guidelines could save 19 percent more lives.
In the U.S., there are approximately 264,000 cases of breast cancer each year Diagnosed About 2,400 are women and men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease kills approximately 42,000 women and 500 men in the United States each year.
Breast cancer screening usually involves a mammogram, an x-ray of the breast.
The group’s guidelines apply to cisgender women and all others who were assigned female at birth and are at average risk for breast cancer. It is not for people at high risk of breast cancer, including those with a family history of the disease.
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations are generally widely adopted in the United States panel previous guidanceLast updated in 2016, it is recommended that women should start screening every other year at age 50.
The guidelines also say women in their 40s can talk to their doctors about getting screened, especially if they have a family history of breast cancer.
At that time, the panel was worried Early screening can lead to unnecessary treatment in young women, including negative biopsies. A biopsy A tissue sample taken from the body to test for diseases such as cancer.
But the group said it changed the guidelines because of “new and more inclusive science” about breast cancer in people under 50, said Dr. Carol Mangione, a past chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, in the guidelines.
According to statistics, from 2015 to 2019, the incidence of breast cancer among women aged 40 to 49 increased by an average of 2% per year. National Cancer Institute.
The new guidelines also aim to moderate disparities in breast cancer death rates between black and white women, the team said.
black women are 40% more likely die from the disease more than their white counterparts, and “often develop fatal cancer at a young age,” the group said in the guide.
The group called “urgently” for more research on how to eliminate this discrepancy.
“Ensuring that black women are screened by age 40 is an important first step, but it is not enough to improve the health inequities we face related to breast cancer,” Dr. Wanda Nicholson, vice chair of the group, said in the guidelines.
other medical groups, including American College of Radiology and American Cancer Societyhas recommended annual breast cancer screening until the age of 50.
About 60% of women aged 40 to 49 Report had a mammogram within the past two years in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.