Contribution of the Unified Health Care System to mammography screening in Brazil, 2013.
OBJECTIVE
To estimate the coverage of opportunistic mammography screening performed via the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS, Unified Health Care System), at the state and regional level, in 2013.


METHODS
This was an ecological study in which coverage was estimated by determining the ratio between the number of mammograms performed and the expected number of mammograms among the population of females between 50 and 69 years of age. The number of mammograms performed in the target population was obtained from the Outpatient Database of the Information Technology Department of the SUS. To calculate the expected number of mammograms, we considered 58.9% of the target population, the proportion that would be expected on the basis of the recommendations of the Brazilian National Cancer Institute.


RESULTS
In 2013, the estimated national coverage of mammography screening via the SUS was 24.8%. The mammography rate ranged from 12.0% in the northern region to 31.3% in the southern region. When stratified by state, coverage was lowest in the state of Pará and highest in the state of Santa Catarina (7.5% and 35.7%, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
The coverage of mammography screening performed via the SUS is low. There is a significant disparity among the Brazilian states (including the Federal District of Brasília) and among regions, being higher in the south/southeast and lower in the north/northeast.
PhD, Professor and Coordinator of the Breast Disease Program at the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, GO, Brazil.
Ruffo
R
Freitas-Junior
PhD, Psychologist, Member of the Goiânia Breast Disease Research Network and Breast Disease Program at the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, GO, Brazil.
Danielle Cristina Netto
DC
Rodrigues
PhD, Senior Technologist for the Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear/Centro Regional de Ciências Nucleares do Centro-Oeste, Goiânia, GO, Brazil.
Rosangela da Silveira
RD
Corrêa
PhD, Medical Physicist, Consultant for the Ionizing Radiation Quality Control Sector of the Instituto Nacional de Câncer (INCA), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
João Emílio
JE
Peixoto
Graduate Student in Environmental Sciences at the Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, GO, Brazil.
Humberto Vinícius Carrijo Guimarães
HV
de Oliveira
PhD, Professor at the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, GO, Brazil.
Rosemar Macedo Sousa
RM
Rahal
Breast neoplasms/prevention & control; Health services/statistics & numerical data; Mammography/statistics & numerical data; Mass screening/statistics & numerical data