Cumulative attendance, assessment and cancer detection rate over four screening rounds in five English breast-screening programmes: a retrospective study.
BACKGROUND
Data collection in the National Health Service Breast Screening Programme monitors performance in a different cohort of women each year.


METHODS
This paper follows a single cohort study of 57,425 women (aged 50-53, when first invited) over four screening rounds to find: how many women attend screening and how often; how many were assessed; how many times they were assessed; and the number of cancers detected at each round.


RESULTS
Average attendance in each round was 76.9% and has remained constant. Only 62% of women have attended all four rounds, but 89.9% have been screened at least once, the average number of attendances being 3.5. Average assessment rate decreased from 7.3 to 3.5%. A total of 11.3% of women were assessed once, 0.91% twice and 0.06% three times. Cancer detection rates have more than doubled from 3.3 per 1000 screened to 6.9.


CONCLUSIONS
Current monitoring shows constant uptake over time, but when looking at a cohort of individual woman, a much larger percentage have 'ever' attended and a smaller number have attended all invitations. The chance of a woman being assessed at all, if she attends all four rounds, is 12.3%, which can be calculated by summating the recall rates in each round.
Wallis
Matthew
M
Breast Screening Unit, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, Clifford Bridge Road, Coventry, CV2 2DX, United Kingdom. mgwallis12@aol.com
Neilson
Fergus
F
Hogarth
Helen
H
Whitaker
Caroline
C
Faulkner
Keith
K
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D017050:Episode of Care; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013222:State Medicine; D013997:Time Factors; D016387:Women's Health