Many high-risk women aren ' t getting appropriate breast cancer screening

Many women younger than 40 who are at high risk for breast cancer are not getting appropriate screening, according to findings published October 11 in the American Journal of Surgery.  Researchers led by Christine Pestana, MD, from Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, NC, found that of the women younger than 40 in their study, only about 3% underwent appropriate screening despite over one in three meeting high-risk criteria.  “This analysis highlights a significant discrepancy between those meeting criteria for high-risk screening and those who underwent appropriate screening,” the Pestana team wrote. Several health societies, including those in radiology, recommend annual screening mammography to start at age 40 for women with an average risk of developing breast cancer. However, guidelines by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recommend screening young women with an increased breast cancer risk, meaning a 20% or greater lifetime risk. Pestana and colleagues evaluated their health system’s institutional rates of high-risk screening in young breast cancer patients prior to their diagnosis. They investigated risk scores from the Tyrer-Cuzick model and characteristics of breast cancer patients younger than 40, using data collected between 2013 and 2018. In all, the team included data from 92 women with an average age of 34.5 in the study. It found that only 3.3 % (n = 3) of the women underwent appropriate screening mammography, despite 35....
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Womens Imaging Breast Source Type: news