Showing posts with label screening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label screening. Show all posts

Thursday 18 April 2019

Very Few People Over Age 50 Are Diagnosed By Detection Of Skin Cancer

Very Few People Over Age 50 Are Diagnosed By Detection Of Skin Cancer.
Too few middle-aged and older snow-white Americans are being screened for bark cancer, a exact problem among those who did not finish high school or receive other banal cancer screenings, a new study has found. Researchers analyzed data from 10,486 ghostly men and women, aged 50 and older, who took part in the 2005 National Health Interview Survey.

Only 16 percent of men and 13 percent of women reported having a coat research in the past year. The lowest rates of skin cancer screenings were amongst men and women aged 50 to 64, people with some high school cultivation or less, those without a history of skin cancer, and those who hadn't had a recent screening for breast cancer, prostate cancer or colorectal cancer.

So "With those older than 50 being at a higher gamble for developing melanoma, our memorize results clearly indicate that more intervention is needed in this population," study author Elliot J Coups, a behavioral scientist at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey and an confederate professor of remedy at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, said in a news release from the institute. "Of itemized interest is the amount of education one has and how that may affect whether a person is screened or not screened for hide cancer.

Is it a matter of a person not knowing the importance of such an examination or where to get such a screening and from whom? Is it a occasion of one's insurance not covering a dermatologist or there being no coverage at all? We are hopeful this study leads to further confabulation among health-care professionals, particularly among community physicians, about what steps can be entranced to ensure their patients are receiving information on skin cancer screening and are being presented with opportunities to come into that examination". Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

Thursday 11 April 2019

E-Mail Reminder To The Survey

E-Mail Reminder To The Survey.
Both electronic and mailed reminders alleviate aid some patients to get colorectal cancer screenings, two new studies show. One work included 1103 patients, aged 50 to 75, at a group work who were overdue for colorectal cancer screening. Half of them received a single electronic message from their doctor, along with a relate to a Web-based tool to assess their risk for colorectal cancer. The other patients acted as a button group and did not receive any electronic messages. One month later, the screening rates were 8,3 percent for patients who received the electronic reminders and 0,2 percent in the be in control group.

But the imbalance was no longer significant after four months - 15,8 percent vs 13,1 percent. Among the 552 patients who received the electronic message, 54 percent viewed it and 9 percent worn the Web-based assessment tool. About one-fifth of the patients who occupied the assessment way were estimated to have a higher-than-average risk for colorectal cancer.

Patients who used the risk tool were more probable to get screened. "Patients have expressed interest in interacting with their medical record using electronic portals almost identical to the one used in our intervention," wrote Dr Thomas D Sequist, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and colleagues, in a statement release.

Thursday 27 December 2018

Previous Guidelines For Monitoring Cholesterol Levels In Children Might Miss Some Children With High Cholesterol

Previous Guidelines For Monitoring Cholesterol Levels In Children Might Miss Some Children With High Cholesterol.
Although dignified cholesterol levels are on the whole considered an grown-up problem, a new study suggests that current screening guidelines for cholesterol in children omission many kids who already have higher cholesterol levels than they should. The swot found that almost 10 percent of children who didn't fit the current criteria for cholesterol screening already had sublime cholesterol levels. "Our data retrospectively looked at a little over 20000 fifth-grade children screened over several years.

We found 548 children - who didn't warrant screening under current guidelines - with cholesterol abnormalities. And of those, 98 had sufficiently lifted levels that one would contemplate the use of cholesterol-lowering medications," said Dr William Neal, director of the Coronary Artery Risk Detection in Appalachian Communities (CARDIAC) Project at the Robert C Byrd Health Science Center at West Virginia University.

And "I of our text pretty conclusively show that all children should be screened for cholesterol abnormalities". Results of the research will be published in the August issue of Pediatrics, but will appear online July 12, 2010. Researchers said they had no economic relationships relevant to the report to disclose.

The undercurrent guidelines from the National Cholesterol Education Project recommend cholesterol screening for children with parents or grandparents who have a yesterday's news of premature heart disease - before age 55 - or those whose parents have significantly glad cholesterol levels - total cholesterol above 240 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) of blood. NCEP guidelines also exhort screening for children whose family account is unknown, particularly if they have other risk factors such as obesity.

When these guidelines were developed, experts thought that about 25 percent of US children would deal with the screening criteria. However, in the new study, 71,4 percent of children met the screening criteria.

Going into the study, experts knew that the guidelines might blunder some children with elated cholesterol, but there were concerns about labeling children with a pre-existing condition at such a young age. And there was problem that medications might be overprescribed to children. Also, there were concerns about the cost of universal screening, according to the study.

Friday 20 July 2018

Lung Cancer Remains The Most Lethal Cancer

Lung Cancer Remains The Most Lethal Cancer.
New recommendations from the American Cancer Society voice that older up to date or former heavy smokers may want to consideration low-dose CT scans to help screen for lung cancer. Specifically, that includes those elderly 55 to 74 with a 30 pack-year smoking history who still smoke or who had quit within the past 15 years. Pack-years are a count made by multiplying the number of packs of cigarettes smoked a period by the number of years of smoking. "Even with screening, lung cancer would remain the most lethal cancer," said Dr Norman Edelman, captain medical officer at the American Lung Association.

He notable the cancer society guidelines are similar to the ones from the lung association. The unfamiliar recommendation follows on the results of a major US National Cancer Institute study, published in 2010 in Radiology, that found that annual CT screening for lung cancer for older accepted or previous smokers cut their death rate by 20 percent.

Edelman stressed that the study does nothing to change the experience that smoking prevention and cessation remain the most important public health challenge there is. "Screening is not a passage to make smoking safe from cancer deaths, and certainly does nothing to prevent smoking-related deaths from habitual obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease".

The cancer society recommendations also call smoking cessation counseling as a high priority and stress that CT screening is not an alternative to quitting smoking. CT screening should only be done after a examination between patients and their doctors so people fully understand the benefits, limitations and risks of screening. In addition, screening should only be done by someone au fait in low-dose CT lung cancer screening, the cancer bund stressed.

Thursday 14 June 2018

Mammogram Warns Against Cancer

Mammogram Warns Against Cancer.
Often-conflicting results from studies on the value of unvaried mammography have only fueled the question about how often women should get a mammogram and at what age they should start. In a new examination of previous research, experts have applied the same statistical yardstick to four large studies and re-examined the results. They found that the benefits are more uniform across the large studies than previously thought. All the studies showed a major reduction in breast cancer deaths with mammography screening.

So "Women should be reassured that mammography is truly effective," said study researcher Robert Smith, senior president of cancer screening for the American Cancer Society. Smith is scheduled to present the findings this week at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The findings also were published in the November originate of the newsletter Breast Cancer Management.

In 2009, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an unallied group of national experts, updated its recommendation on mammography, advising women ancient 50 to 74 to get mammograms every two years, not annually.The group also advised women grey 40 to 49 to talk to their doctors about benefits and harms, and decide on an single basis whether to start screening. Other organizations, including the American Cancer Society, pursue to recommend annual screening mammograms beginning at age 40.

In assessing mammography's benefits and harms, researchers often demeanour at the number of women who must be screened to prevent one death from breast cancer - a gang that has ranged widely among studies. In assessing harms, experts deduce into account the possibility of false positives. Other possible harms include finding a cancer that would not otherwise have been found on screening (and not been difficult in a woman's lifetime) and anxiety associated with additional testing.

Friday 2 February 2018

Smokers Often Die From Lung Cancer

Smokers Often Die From Lung Cancer.
Smokers who have a CT look over to verify for lung cancer stand a nearly one-in-five chance that doctors will find and potentially go into a tumor that would not have caused illness or death, researchers report. Despite the finding, major medical groups indicated they are no doubt to stick by current recommendations that a select segment of long-time smokers bear regular CT scans. "It doesn't invalidate the initial study, which showed you can abatement lung cancer mortality by 20 percent," said Dr Norman Edelman, ranking medical adviser for the American Lung Association.

And "It adds an interesting caution that clinicians ought to expect about - that they will be taking some cancers out that wouldn't go on to kill that patient". Over-diagnosis has become a controversial concept in cancer research, specially in the fields of prostate and breast cancer. Some researchers argue that many populate receive painful and life-altering treatments for cancers that never would have harmed or killed them.

The new contemplate used data gathered during the National Lung Screening Trial, a major seven-year look at to determine whether lung CT scans could help prevent cancer deaths. The try-out found that 20 percent of lung cancer deaths could be prevented if doctors perform CT screening on relatives aged 55 to 79 who are current smokers or quit less than 15 years ago. To meet the requirements for screening, the participants must have a smoking history of 30 pack-years or greater.

In other words, they had to have smoked an usual of one pack of cigarettes a day for 30 years. Based on the study findings, the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology and other medical associations recommended career screenings for that set segment of the smoking population. The federal sway also has issued a draft rule that, if accepted, would make the lung CT scans a recommended precautionary health measure that insurance companies must cover fully, with no co-pay or deductible.

Thursday 9 November 2017

Mass Screening For Prostate Cancer Can Have Unpleasant Consequences

Mass Screening For Prostate Cancer Can Have Unpleasant Consequences.
Health campaigns that highlight the question of broken-hearted screening rates for prostate cancer to forward such screenings seem to have an unintended effect: They discourage men from undergoing a prostate exam, a budding German study suggests. The finding, reported in the current issue of Psychological Science, stems from till by a research team from the University of Heidelberg that gauged the intention to get screened for prostate cancer to each men over the age of 45 who reside in two German cities.

In earlier research, the learning authors had found that men who had never had such screenings tended to believe that most men hadn't either. In the known effort, the team exposed men who had never been screened to one of two health report statements: either that only 18 percent of German men had been screened in the past year, or that 65 percent of men had been screened.

Thursday 13 July 2017

Visiting Nurse Improves Intelligence

Visiting Nurse Improves Intelligence.
Poor children get wise man and behavioral benefits from stamping-ground visits by nurses and other skilled caregivers, new research suggests. The inquiry included more than 700 poor women and their children in Denver who enrolled in a non-profit program called the Nurse-Family Partnership. This federal program tries to improve outcomes for first-born children of first-time mothers with minimal support.

The goal of the study, which was published online recently in the yearbook JAMA Pediatrics, was to determine the effectiveness of using trained "paraprofessionals". These professionals did not need college tuition and they shared many of the same social characteristics of the families they visited. The women in the study were divided into three groups.

Sunday 19 March 2017

A New Approach To The Regularity Of Mammography

A New Approach To The Regularity Of Mammography.
A revitalized backfire challenges the 2009 recommendation from the US Preventive Services Task Force that women between 40 and 49 who are not at lofty risk of breast cancer can probably wait to get a mammogram until 50, and even then only needfulness the exam every two years. A well-known Harvard Medical School radiologist, script in the July issue of Radiology, says telling women to wait until 50 is bedsitter out wrong. The task force recommendations, he says, are based on faulty realm and should be revised or withdrawn.

So "We know from the scientific studies that screening saves a lot of lives, and it saves lives to each women in their 40s," said Dr Daniel B Kopans, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and older radiologist in the breast imaging division at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said its recommendation, which sparked a firestorm of controversy, was based in art and would keep many women each year from superfluous worry and treatment.

But the guidelines left most women confused. The American Cancer Society continued to suggest annual mammograms for women in their 40s, and young breast cancer survivors shared great stories about how screening saved their lives. One main question with the guidelines is that the USPSTF relied on incorrect methods of analyzing data from breast cancer studies.

The gamble of breast cancer starts rising gradually during the 40s, 50s and gets higher still during the 60s. But the figures used by the USPSTF lumped women between 40 and 49 into one group, and women between 50 and 59 in another group, and predetermined those in the younger group were much less likely to develop tit cancer than those in the older group.

That may be true except that assigning age 50 as the "right" maturity for mammography is arbitrary. "A woman who is 49 is similar biologically to a woman who is 51. Breast cancer doesn't observe your age. There is nothing that changes abruptly at age 50".

Other problems with the USPSTF guidelines cover the following. The guidelines cite research that shows mammograms are important for a 15 percent reduction in mortality. That's an underestimate. Other studies show screening women in their 40s can ease deaths by as much as 44 percent. Sparing women from unnecessary annoy over false positives is a poor reason for not screening, since dying of breast cancer is a far worse fate. "They made the self-serving decision that women in their 40s couldn't tolerate the anxiety of being called back because of a dubious screening study, even though when you ask women who've been through it, most are pleased there was nothing wrong, and studies show they will come back for their next screening even more religiously. The job force took the decision away from women. It's incredibly paternalistic". The business force recommendation to screen only high-risk women in their 40s will oversight the 75 percent of breast cancers that occur among women who would not be considered high risk, that is, they don't have a fervid family history of the disease and they don't have the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes known to amplify cancer risk.

Wednesday 28 September 2016

CT Better At Detecting Lung Cancer Than X-Rays

CT Better At Detecting Lung Cancer Than X-Rays.
Routinely screening longtime smokers and old stuffy smokers for lung cancer using CT scans can digest the death rate by 20 percent compared to those screened by chest X-ray, according to a vital US government study. The National Lung Screening Trial included more than 53000 stylish and former heavy smokers aged 55 to 74 who were randomly chosen to be subjected to either a "low-dose helical CT" scan or a chest X-ray once a year for three years. Those results, which showed that those who got the CT scans were 20 percent less acceptable to die than those who received X-rays alone, were initially published in the newsletter Radiology in November 2010.

The new study, published online July 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine, offers a fuller review of the details from the trial, which was funded by the US National Cancer Institute. Detecting lung tumors earlier offers patients the occasion for earlier treatment. The data showed that over the course of three years, about 24 percent of the low-dose helical CT screens were positive, while just under 7 percent of the coffer X-rays came back positive, purport there was a suspicious lesion (tissue abnormality).

Helical CT, also called a "spiral" CT scan, provides a more unabridged picture of the chest than an X-ray. While an X-ray is a singular image in which anatomical structures overlap one another, a spiral CT takes images of multiple layers of the lungs to form a three-dimensional image. About 81 percent of the CT glance at patients needed follow-up imaging to determine if the suspicious lesion was cancer.

But only about 2,2 percent needed a biopsy of the lung tissue, while another 3,3 percent needed a broncoscopy, in which a tube is threaded down into the airway. "We're very delighted with that. We believe that means that most of these positive examinations can be followed up with imaging, not an invasive procedure," said Dr Christine D Berg, turn over co-investigator and acting spokesperson director of the division of cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute.

The vast majority of thorough screens were "false positives" - 96,4 percent of the CT scans and 94,5 percent of X-rays. False undeniable means the screening test spots an abnormality, but it turns out not to be cancerous. Instead, most of the abnormalities turned out to be lymph nodes or chafed tissues, such as scarring from prior infections.

Thursday 26 May 2016

The Human Papilloma Virus Can Cause Cancer

The Human Papilloma Virus Can Cause Cancer.
Figuring out when to be screened for this cancer or that can assign women's heads spinning. Screening guidelines have been changing for an array of cancers, and at times even the experts don't come on what screenings need to be done when. But for cervical cancer, there seems to be more of a overall consensus on which women need to be screened, and at what ages those screenings should be done.

The particular cause of cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV), according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HPV is very prevalent, and most colonize will be infected with the virus at some point in their lives, according to Dr Mark Einstein, a gynecologic oncologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "But, it's only in very few family that HPV will go on to cause cancer. That's what makes this font of cancer very amenable to screening.

Plus, it takes a lengthy time to develop into cancer. It's about five to seven years from infection with HPV to precancerous changes in cervical cells". During that present it's possible that the immune procedure will take care of the virus and any abnormal cells without any medical intervention. Even if the precancerous cells linger, it still approximately takes five or more additional years for cancer to develop.

Dr Radhika Rible, an subsidiary clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, Los Angeles, agreed that HPV is often nothing to annoyance about. "HPV is very, very prevalent, but most women who are young and healthy will evident the virus with no consequences. It rarely progresses to cancer, so it's not anything to be worried or shocked about, but it's important to stick with the guidelines because, if it does cause any problems, we can stop it early".

Two tests are utilized for cervical cancer screening, according to the American Cancer Society. For a Pap test, the more ordinary of the two, a doctor collects cells from the cervix during a pelvic exam and sends them to a lab to infer whether any of the cells are abnormal. The other test, called an HPV screen, looks for affidavit of an HPV infection.

Friday 20 May 2016

A New Factor Of Increasing The Risk Of Colon Cancer Was Studied

A New Factor Of Increasing The Risk Of Colon Cancer Was Studied.
Researchers communication that spacy levels of a protein measured through blood tests could be a foreshadowing that patients are at higher risk of colon cancer. And another new investigate finds that in blacks, a common germ boosts the risk of colorectal polyps - odd tissue growths in the colon that often become cancerous.

Both studies are slated to be presented Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual intersection in Washington, DC. One study links altered consciousness levels of circulating C-reactive protein to a higher risk of colon cancer. Protein levels also take a rise out of when there's low-grade inflammation in the body.

So "Elevated CRP levels may be considered as a imperil marker, but not necessarily a cause, for the carcinogenic process of colon cancer," Dr Gong Yang, examine associate professor at Vanderbilt University, said in an AACR news release. Yang and colleagues wilful 338 cases of colorectal cancer among participants in the Shanghai Women's Health Study and compared them to 451 women without the disease.

Women whose protein levels were in the highest humanity had a 2,5 - clip higher risk of colon cancer compared to those in the lowest quarter. In the other study, researchers linked the bacterium Helicobacter pylori to a higher jeopardize of colorectal polyps in blacks. That could pressure it more likely that they'll develop colon cancer.

But "Not the whole world gets sick from H pylori infection, and there is a legitimate concern about overusing antibiotics to present it," said Dr Duane T Smoot, chief of the gastrointestinal segment at Howard University, in a statement. However, the majority of the time these polyps will become cancerous if not removed, so we be in want of to screen for the bacteria and treat it as a possible cancer prevention strategy. The ruminate on authors, who examined the medical records of 1262 black patients, found that the polyps were 50 percent more governing in those who were infected with H pylori.

Sunday 8 May 2016

Doctors Recommend A CT Scan

Doctors Recommend A CT Scan.
A much influential sway panel of experts says that older smokers at high risk of lung cancer should experience annual low-dose CT scans to help detect and possibly prevent the spread of the ruinous disease. In its final word on the issue published Dec 30, 2013, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concluded that the benefits to a very circumscribed segment of smokers overcome the risks involved in receiving the annual scans, said co-vice chair Dr Michael LeFevre, a grand professor of family medicine at the University of Missouri. Specifically, the job force recommended annual low-dose CT scans for current and former smokers old 55 to 80 with at least a 30 "pack-year" history of smoking who have had a cigarette sometime within the hindmost 15 years.

The person also should be generally healthy and a good candidate for surgery should cancer be found. About 20000 of the United States' nearly 160000 annual lung cancer deaths could be prevented if doctors follow these screening guidelines, LeFevre said when the panel initially proposed the recommendations in July, 2013. Lung cancer found in its earliest spot is 80 percent curable, predominantly by surgical firing of the tumor. "That's a lot of people, and we feel it's worth it, but there will still be a lot more people on one's deathbed from lung cancer".

And "That's why the most important way to prevent lung cancer will continue to be to talk into smokers to quit". Pack years are determined by multiplying the number of packs smoked continuously by the number of years a person has smoked. For example, a person who has smoked two packs a lifetime for 15 years has 30 pack years, as has a person who has smoked a pack a light of day for 30 years. The USPSTF drew up the recommendation after a thorough review of previous research, and published them online Dec 30, 2013 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

And "I cogitate they did a very advantage analysis of looking at the pros and cons, the harms and benefits," Dr Albert Rizzo, nearby past chair of the national board of directors of the American Lung Association, said at the stretch the draft recommendations were published in July, 2013. "They looked at a balance of where we can get the best bang for our buck". The USPSTF is an voluntary volunteer panel of national health experts who appear evidence-based recommendations on clinical services intended to detect and prevent illness.

Friday 26 February 2016

Hispanic Men Are More Likely To Suffer From Polyps in Colon Than Women

Hispanic Men Are More Likely To Suffer From Polyps in Colon Than Women.
Among Hispanics, men are twice as conceivable as women to have colon polyps and are also more disposed to to have multiple polyps, a unusual study in Puerto Rico has found. The researchers also found that the bone up patients older than 60 were 56 percent more likely to have polyps than those younger than 60. Polyps are growths in the gargantuan intestine. Some polyps may already be cancerous or can become cancerous.

The research included 647 patients aged 50 and older undergoing colorectal cancer screening at a gastroenterology clinic in Puerto Rico. In 70 percent of patients with polyps, the growths were on the rational subsidiary of the colon. In white patients, polyps are typically found on the left facet of the colon. This difference may result from underlying molecular differences in the two patient groups, said go into author Dr Marcia Cruz-Correa, an associate professor of medicine and biochemistry at the University of Puerto Rico Cancer Center.

The judgement about polyp location is important because it highlights the straits to use colonoscopy when conducting colorectal cancer screening in Hispanics. This is the most effective approach of detecting polyps on the right side of the colon. The study was to be presented Sunday at the Digestive Diseases Week gathering in New Orleans.

Wednesday 25 March 2015

Effective Test For Cervical Cancer Screening

Effective Test For Cervical Cancer Screening.
An HPV examine recently approved by US fitness officials is an effective way to check for cervical cancer, two outstanding women's health organizations said Thursday. The groups said the HPV exam is an effective, one-test alternative to the current recommendation of screening with either a Pap examination alone or a combination of the HPV test and a Pap test. However, not all experts are in agreement with the move: the largest ob-gyn alliance in the United States, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is still recommending that women grey 30 to 65 be screened using either the Pap test alone, or "co-tested" with a coalition of both the HPV test and a Pap test. The new, so-called interim auspices report was issued by two other groups - the Society of Gynecologic Oncology and the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology.

It followed US Food and Drug Administration authorization last year of the cobas HPV probe as a primary test for cervical cancer screening. The HPV try detects DNA from 14 types of HPV - a sexually transmitted virus that includes types 16 and 18, which cause 70 percent of cervical cancers. The two medical groups said the interim regulation make public will help health care providers draw how best to include primary HPV testing in the care of their female patients until a number of medical societies update their guidelines for cervical cancer screening.

And "Our examination of the data indicates that leading HPV testing misses less pre-cancer and cancer than cytology a Pap test alone. The government panel felt that primary HPV screening can be considered as an option for women being screened for cervical cancer," interim direction report lead author Dr Warner Huh said in a newsflash release from the Society of Gynecologic Oncology. Huh is director of the University of Alabama's Division of Gynecologic Oncology The FDA approved the cobas HPV assay continue April as a first step in cervical cancer screening for women aged 25 and older.

Roche Molecular Systems Inc, headquartered in Pleasanton, California, makes the test. Thursday's interim communication recommends that fundamental HPV testing should be considered starting at age 25. For women younger than 25, tendency guidelines recommending a Pap test solo beginning at age 21 should be followed. The new recommendations also state that women with a negative development for a primary HPV test should not be tested again for three years, which is the same interval recommended for a normal Pap check result.

Thursday 5 December 2013

Early Mammography For Women Younger Than 50 Years With A Moderate History

Early Mammography For Women Younger Than 50 Years With A Moderate History.
Mammograms given to women under 50 with a temperate class history of soul cancer can spot cancers earlier and increase the odds for long-term survival, a new cramming shows. British researchers examined mammogram results for 6,710 women with several relatives with heart of hearts cancer, or at least one relative diagnosed before age 40, finding that 136 were diagnosed with the malignancy between 2003 and 2007. These women, who researchers said were quite not carriers of a mutated BRCA heart cancer gene, started receiving mammograms at an earlier age than recommended by the UK National Health Service, which currently offers the screenings every three years for women between the ages of 50 and 70.

Findings showed their tumors were smaller and less quarrelsome than those in women screened at normal ages, and these women were more acceptable to be alive 10 years after diagnosis of an invasive cancer, the researchers said. "We were not unreservedly surprised at the findings," said lead researcher Stephen Duffy, a professor of cancer screening at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary University of London.

And "There is already validation that inhabitants screening with mammography works in women under 50, even if it is less less effective than at later ages. However, there is evidence that women with a family history have denser core tissue, which makes mammography a tougher job, so we were not sure what to expect," Duffy noted. "We did not explicitly omit BRCA-positive women," he added, "but very few with an identified mutation were recruits, and because the women had a unexceptional rather than an extensive family history, we suspect there were very few cases among the vast majority who had not been tested for mutations".

Duffy juxtaposed his findings against the stylish debate among US public health experts, who diverge over whether annual mammograms are necessary beginning at the age of 40, which has been the standard for years. In November 2009, the US Preventive Services Task Force sparked wrath when it revised its mammogram recommendations, suggesting that screenings can hang about until age 50 and be given every other year.

And "There are two issues here," Duffy said. "The inception is that there is some evidence of a mortality benefit of screening women in their 40s, albeit a lesser one than in older women. The assistant is that our study does not relate to natives screening, but to mammographic surveillance of women who are concerned about their family history of breast or ovarian cancer," he explained.