(Press-News.org) CHICAGO – Breast cancer mortality is significantly reduced when women regularly attend screening mammograms, according to research being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Early detection of breast cancer, before symptoms are present, is key to survivability. According to the American Cancer Society, women between the ages of 45 and 54 should get mammograms every year. Women who are 55 years and older can switch to every other year or continue with annual mammograms. Skipping just one scheduled mammogram could result in a more advanced breast cancer diagnosis, significantly impacting a patient’s chance of survival.
“The purpose of mammography is to detect breast cancer during the few years it can be seen on a mammogram, but before symptoms are apparent,” said study author Robert A. Smith, Ph.D., senior vice president and director of the American Cancer Society Center for Cancer Screening in Atlanta, Georgia. “If a woman unknowingly has breast cancer and misses or postpones her mammogram during this time when she has no symptoms, but her breast cancer is growing and perhaps spreading, then the window for early detection will be lost.”
Even though regular mammograms are an important factor in early breast cancer detection, there are still many barriers that restrict women from receiving this preventative care, including access and work or family obligations.
“It is challenging to keep track of your schedule, and in the U.S., many women do not receive reminders. Further, for all of us, the obligations of work and family compete with our scheduled health care,” Dr. Smith said.
Dr. Smith and colleagues sought to identify the exact impact of missing even one mammogram.
The researchers obtained women’s screening history from oncology centers throughout Sweden for a period from 1992 to 2016. A total of 36,079 breast cancer patients were included in the study.
Using data from the Swedish Cause of Death Register, the researchers identified 4,564 breast cancer deaths among the patients included in the study.
The researchers then tracked all of the women’s participation in five or fewer most recent invitations for breast cancer screening prior to cancer diagnosis.
Women who attended all their invited screening mammograms had a survivability rate of over 80%. Women who didn’t participate in any screenings had a survival rate that ranged from 59.1% to 77.6%.
Women who attended all five screening mammograms saw a 72% reduction in the risk of dying from breast cancer compared to women who didn’t participate in any screening mammograms. Even after conservative adjustment for potential self-selection factors, there was a highly significant 66% reduction in the risk of breast cancer death.
“Women who attended all five previous mammography examinations prior to a diagnosis of breast cancer were nearly three times less likely to die from breast cancer compared with women who had not attended any examinations, and each additional examination attended among the five previous examinations conferred an additive protective effect against dying from breast cancer,” Dr. Smith said.
The researchers stressed that imaging facilities should prioritize getting patients in for screening at the earliest opportunity. This is especially important when women have to cancel their appointments. Facilities should reschedule these screening mammograms for the next earliest available appointment.
“These findings show that as much as possible, adherence to regular mammography screening is the very best insurance a woman has against being diagnosed with an advanced breast cancer that could be life-threatening,” Dr. Smith said.
Co-authors are Stephen W. Duffy, M.Sc., Amy Ming-Fang Yen, Ph.D., László Tabár, M.D., Abbie Ting-Yu, Ph.D., Sam Li-Sheng Chen, Ph.D., Chen-Yant Hsu, M.D., Peter B. Dean, M.D., and Tony Hsiu-His Chen, Ph.D.
###
Note: Copies of RSNA 2023 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press23.
RSNA is an association of radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Illinois. (RSNA.org)
Editor’s note: The data in these releases may differ from those in the published abstract and those actually presented at the meeting, as researchers continue to update their data right up until the meeting. To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, please call the RSNA Newsroom at 1-312-791-6610.
For patient-friendly information on breast cancer screening with mammography, visit RadiologyInfo.org.
END
Slow waves that usually only occur in the brain during sleep are also present during wakefulness in people with epilepsy and may protect against increased brain excitability associated with the condition, finds a new study led by researchers at UCL.
The research, published in Nature Communications and involving the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, examined electroencephalogram (EEG) scans from electrodes in the brains of 25 patients with focal epilepsy (a type of epilepsy characterised by seizures arising from a specific part of the brain), while they carried out an associative memory task.
The electrodes ...
A new study from Mass Eye and Ear investigators shows that individuals who report tinnitus, which present as a ringing in the ears in more than one out of ten adults worldwide, are experiencing auditory nerve loss that is not picked up by conventional hearing tests. This work is part of a P50 grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Mass Eye and Ear researchers within the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories (EPL) for their work on cochlear synaptopathy, which is commonly referred to as “hidden hearing loss.” The results from this study provide a better understanding on the origins of tinnitus and are published ...
The European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) is delighted to announce that the 2024 European Journal of Endocrinology (EJE) Award has been awarded to Professor Li Chan.
Li Chan is Professor of Molecular Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Centre for Endocrinology, William Harvey Research Institute, at the Queen Mary University of London.
The European Journal of Endocrinology Award is presented to a candidate who has significantly contributed to the advancement of knowledge in the field of endocrinology through publication.
Professor Chan has been undertaking world class research in the biology ...
Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide and a common pregnancy complication. This serious medical condition is understudied and not universally defined or well represented in health records. A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, used the large language model Flan-T5 to extract medical concepts from electronic health records in order to better define and identify the populations impacted by postpartum hemorrhage.
The study found the model to be 95 percent accurate in identifying patients with the condition, and resulted ...
Microgels form a thin protective shell around a droplet until the temperature rises above 32 degrees. Then the microgels shrink and the droplet dissolves in the surrounding liquid. A study by researchers from the University of Gothenburg now reveals the underlying mechanism behind this process. The discovery could revolutionise methods of targeting medicines to specific locations within the body.
Emulsions consist of numerous droplets that are present in a liquid without dissolving and mixing with the liquid. For example, milk consists of fat droplets stabilised by milk proteins that are dispersed in water. In many applications ...
The building sector is the second largest sector in plastic consumption and is responsible for more than a third of energy related greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Manufacturing processes of construction materials pollute air, land, and water. Accordingly, construction materials made from agro-industrial waste become increasingly attractive due to their lower environmental impact.
To contribute to a new generation of materials made from what is often considered waste, researchers in Panama have now developed a rice husk-based insulation material and evaluated its thermal and mechanical ...
In his Value Creation project in Cell Ag class, Tufts senior Adham Ali faced an intriguing assignment: work with a group of peers to design a product that uses cellular agriculture (or cell ag, for short) to make life easier for consumers.
Majoring in biochemistry, Ali took the class as part of his minor in cell ag—a minor he registered for only this semester, because it’s brand-new at Tufts.
It’s also the world’s first and only undergraduate degree in the field.
Usually used as part of a nascent—and rapidly growing—field that cultivates lab-grown meat from cells in bioreactors, the processes of cellular agriculture can ...
This review was designed by Professor Xiaoling Song and Professor Biao Jiang and written by Pr. Xiaoling Song and a Ph.D. student, Yifan Wu (Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies, ShanghaiTech University) to summarize the application of macrocyclic molecules in cancer treatment. Macrocyclic compounds are cyclic molecules with a structure of 12 or more atoms. In the past decades, macrocycles have received increasing attention in drug development. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved several macrocyclic drugs for cancer therapy. However, the importance of this class of cancer drugs is still not widely known.
Song and Wu comprehensively summarized the applications ...
In his Value Creation project in Cell Ag class, Tufts senior Adham Ali faced an intriguing assignment: work with a group of peers to design a product that uses cellular agriculture (or cell ag, for short) to make life easier for consumers.
Majoring in biochemistry, Ali took the class as part of his minor in cell ag—a minor he registered for only this semester, because it’s brand-new at Tufts.
It’s also the world’s first and only undergraduate degree in the field.
Usually used as part of a nascent—and rapidly growing—field that cultivates lab-grown meat from cells in bioreactors, the processes of cellular agriculture ...
With the world projected to be highly urbanized by 2050, cities are encouraged to take urgent climate actions to mitigate and adapt to the threats of climate change. As climate change intensifies and urbanization increases rapidly, local governments are expected now more than ever to lead climate action planning. However, studies show the limitations of the existing climate action plans (CAPs). So scientists from Hiroshima University have created an Urban Climate Action Planning (UCAP) framework to guide the development of urban CAPs and support the assessment of the level of suitability of these plans.
Their work is published ...
