Annual vs biennial mammography&tumor prognostic characteristics

besa

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-10-annual-bienn...

"Premenopausal women diagnosed with breast cancer following a biennial screening mammogram were more likely to have bigger more advanced tumors than women screened annually, while postmenopausal women not using hormone therapy had a similar proportion of tumors with less favorable prognostic characteristics regardless of whether their screening mammogram was biennial or annual, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology...."

"...The authors used data from Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium facilities and included a total of 15,440 women (ages 40 to 85) with breast cancer diagnosed within one year of an annual or within two years of a biennial screening mammogram.

The authors defined less favorable prognostic characteristics as tumors that were stage IIB or higher, bigger than 15 millimeters, positive lymph nodes and any one or more of these characteristics...."

"......In a related commentary, Wendy Y. Chen, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, writes: "Although the authors do not endorse annual or biennial screening, they imply that biennial screening would be acceptable for postmenopausal women but inferior for premenopausal women owing to their findings of a higher proportion of 'less favorable' cancers with biennial screening in that subgroup.... This study and others have clearly demonstrated that with less frequent mammography, the tumors will be bigger and have a slightly more advanced stage. However, with our better understanding of tumor biology and improvements in targeted therapy, the best way to optimize the risk and/or benefit of screening may not be to maximize the chances of finding a smaller tumor. Instead, efforts should be focused on a better understanding of how screening interacts with tumor biology with a better understanding of the types of interval cancers and sojourn times and how these characteristics differ by age and/or menopausal status."

http://oncology.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2456190