Study: Mammograms every other year OK for women over 50

HealthDay

Some women 50 and older may be able to have a mammogram every other year without increasing their risk of developing an advanced breast cancer, according to a new study of nearly 1 million women.

The study's findings, published online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, drew mixed reactions, including criticism for its methods, from other experts. Debate about who should get mammography, and how often, has been continuing.

In the new research, women 50 to 74 who got a screening mammogram every other year had a risk of developing advanced-stage breast cancer that was similar to that of women in the same age range who were tested every year.

The researchers evaluated nearly 12,000 women with breast cancer and more than 922,000 without, said Dr. Karla Kerlikowske of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

The investigators considered whether the women had high breast density and whether they were taking combination hormone therapy with estrogen and progestin, both considered risk factors for breast cancer.

"If you undergo you are not any more likely to end up with some advanced breast cancer than if you have annual screenings," Kerlikowske said of this group of women.

Screening every two years was also associated with a lower risk of having a false-positive result. Such suspicions of cancer that turn out to be false only after more testing, can cause more expense and distress, experts note.

But for women 40 to 49 with extremely dense breasts, biennial mammograms were linked with nearly a twofold increased risk of advanced-stage cancers and large tumors, and also a high risk of false-positive results.