title: Breast cancer incidence and mortality in Tyrol/Austria after fifteen years of opportunistic mammography screening.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this study was to analyse breast cancer incidence and mortality in Tyrol from 1970 to 2006, namely after performing more than a decade of opportunistic mammography screening and just before piloting an organised screening programme. Our investigation was conducted on a population level.
  
  
  METHODS
  To study time trends in breast cancer incidence and mortality, we applied the age-period-cohort model by Poisson regression to the official mortality data covering more than three decades from 1970 to 2006 and to the incidence data ranging from 1988 to 2006. In addition, for incidence data we analysed data on breast cancer staging and compared these with EU guidelines.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For the analysis of time trend in breast cancer mortality in age groups 40-79, an age-period-cohort model fits well and shows for years 2002-2006 a statistically significant reduction of 26% (95% CI 13%-36%) in breast cancer mortality as compared to 1992-1996. We see only slight non-significant increases in breast cancer incidence. For the past five years, incidence data show a 10% proportion of in situ cases, and of 50% for cases in stages II+.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The opportunistic breast cancer screening programme in Tyrol has only in part exploited the mortality reduction known for organised screening programmes. There seems to be potential for further improvement, and we recommend that an organised screening programme and a detailed screening database be introduced to collect all information needed to analyse the quality indicators suggested by the EU guidelines.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Epidemiology of the Tyrolean State Hospitals Ltd, Cancer Registry of Tyrol, Innsbruck, Austria. willi.oberaigner@iet.at
authors.forename: Willi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Oberaigner
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Buchberger
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Frede
authors.forename: Rudolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Knapp
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Marth
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Siebert
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D001317:Austria / Q000453:epidemiology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008327:Mammography; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D012042:Registries; D012044:Regression Analysis