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Screening Breast Cancer: the Mammography War

  • Screening and Imaging (HTC Le-Petross, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Breast Cancer Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There is an established consensus in the breast health community that mammography is the mainstay imaging examination for screening breast cancer. However, there are varied national recommendations among stakeholders and major institutions in the topic of breast cancer screening. Lack of consensus in screening criteria includes risk stratification, age to initiate screening, and the interval of screening. The differences in practice guidelines are mainly due to variation in design and interpretation of screening trials over the past decades. As debates for and against the use of screening mammography continue to escalate, both providers and patients are often confused and wrongly perceive the recommendations as directives. The purpose of this article is to review the current guidelines, analyze the reason for the controversies in screening mammography, and shine light on the upcoming trends of future screening guidelines.

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Notes

  1. Rate ratios are closely related to risk ratios, but they are computed as the ratio of the incidence rate in an exposed group divided by the incidence rate in an unexposed (or less exposed) comparison group. Risk ratio, sometimes abbreviated as RR as well, is the ratio of the cumulative incidences in the exposed and unexposed groups. For the purpose of this article, we are only using the “RR” abbreviation for the rate ratios.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Division of Diagnostic Imaging, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd., Houston, TX, 77030-4009, USA

    Ashmitha Srinivasan

  2. The Breast Care Center of Temecula Valley, 25455 Medical Center Drive, Murrieta, CA, 92562, USA

    Tchaiko Parris

Authors
  1. Ashmitha Srinivasan
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  2. Tchaiko Parris
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Correspondence to Ashmitha Srinivasan.

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Ashmitha Srinivasan and Tchaiko Parris declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Screening and Imaging

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Srinivasan, A., Parris, T. Screening Breast Cancer: the Mammography War. Curr Breast Cancer Rep 8, 206–212 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12609-016-0222-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12609-016-0222-7

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