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18
Aug 2020
Screening women for breast cancer in their 40s ‘could save lives’
A UK study has found that lowering the screening age for breast cancer to women from their 40s instead of their 50s could save lives without adding to the diagnosis of harmless cancers.
The research was based on 160,000 women from England, Wales and Scotland and followed up for around 23 years, and scientists say that by lowering the screening age, one life per 1,000 women checked could be saved.
However, Cancer Research UK says it is still “not clear if reducing the breast screening age would give any additional benefit compared to the UK’s existing screening programme”.
The cancer charity added that priority should be given to getting cancer services “back on track” for women aged 50-70, following the disruption caused by the pandemic.
During lockdown, cancer screening programmes which detect early signs of breast, cervical and bowel cancer, were postponed in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, although not officially stopped in England.
Currently, women below the age of 50 are not routinely offered breast screening because their risk is usually very low and their breast tissue is more dense, making it difficult to read the results of mammography tests used to diagnose cancers.
Scientists involved in the recent study say the found a reduction in breast cancer deaths from screening women in their 40s every year over the first ten years they were tracked.
In the group of nearly 54,000 screened women in their 40s, there were 83 deaths, compared to 219 deaths in the 107,000 women of the same age who were not screened.
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Posted by Karen Motley, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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