Benefit of screening mammography in reducing the rate of late-stage breast cancer diagnoses (United States).
OBJECTIVE
We studied the benefit of modern mammography screening in community settings, evaluating age-related differences in rates of late-stage breast cancer detection.


METHODS
Our multicenter population-based case-control study included 931 black and white women with incident breast cancer (American Joint Commission on Cancer Stage IIB or higher) diagnosed 1994-1998 and 4,016 randomly sampled controls never diagnosed with breast cancer. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) estimated the relative rate of late-stage diagnosis in screened and non-screened women.


RESULTS
Women aged 50-64 at diagnosis with at least one screening mammogram in the previous 2 years were significantly less likely to have late-stage diagnosis (OR = 0.41, 95% CI 0.33-0.52). Results for women aged 40-49 were consistent with a screening benefit, although the confidence interval marginally overlapped the null (OR = 0.81, 95% CI 0.64-1.02). Mammography screening was associated with lower rates of late-stage breast cancer among both premenopausal (OR = 0.64, 95% CI 0.50-0.81) and postmenopausal (OR = 0.44, 95% CI 0.35-0.56) women.


CONCLUSIONS
With modern mammography in the community, rates of late-stage breast cancer diagnoses are lower in screened compared to non-screened women ages 40 and older, but age-related differences persist.
Norman
Sandra A
SA
Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, 801 Blockley Hall, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021, USA. snorman@cceb.med.upenn.edu
Localio
A Russell
AR
Zhou
Lan
L
Weber
Anita L
AL
Coates
Ralph J
RJ
Malone
Kathleen E
KE
Bernstein
Leslie
L
Marchbanks
Polly A
PA
Liff
Jonathan M
JM
Lee
Nancy C
NC
Nadel
Marion R
MR
D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016017:Odds Ratio; D017698:Postmenopause; D017697:Premenopause; D012307:Risk Factors; D018426:SEER Program; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D044465:White People