Findings evaluating the effectiveness of breast cancer screening were recently presented at the 8th European Breast Cancer Conference in Vienna sponsored by the European Cancer Conference (ECCO). Researchers determined the life-saving impact of mammography screening and improved adjuvant treatments together have contributed and continue to contribute to reduced breast cancer mortality.
Researchers at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands used computer modeling to show that among women ages 50-75:
-- Adjuvant therapy combined with screening reduced deaths by a total of 27.4 %.
-- If mammography screening were to be extended to women ages 40-49, mortality would be reduced another 5.1%.
-- Overall, total reduction in breast cancer deaths from screening and adjuvant therapy can reach over 31 % when set against an environment with neither treatment nor screening for women in this broader age group.
The debate over the relative benefits of screening, improving treatments, over-diagnosis, will continue, but these researchers concluded that "Screening women of these ages should definitely continue."
Source: ECCO
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