Breast cancer screening at 40 may save 400 lives a year

OFFERING breast cancer screening on the NHS to women from the age of 40 could save up to 400 lives a year.

Like many countries, the UK has a screening programme for over-50s who can have a mammography scan every three years.

However, researchers from Queen Mary University of London found those who began annual scans when they were aged 39 to 41 were 25 per cent less likely to die from breast cancer in the following decade. Professor Stephen Duffy, lead author, said: “The benefit is seen mostly in the first 10 years, but the reduction in mortality persists in the long term, at one life saved per 1,000 screened.

“We now screen more thoroughly and with better equipment than in the 1990s when most of the screening in this trial took place, so the benefits may be even greater.”

More than 160,000 participants in the UK Breast Screening Age Trial were recruited from 1990 to 1997 and selected at random for early inclusion or at 50.

The main outcome was a reduction in mortality from breast cancer among women diagnosed when they were 40 to 49 years old.

There had been concerns that lowering the age will lead to thousands of women receiving damaging treatment including surgery, powerful drugs like tamoxifen and chemotherapy. But the study, published in The Lancet Oncology, found an “at worst modest” rise in the number of these cases.

The researchers said: “Therefore, screening in the age group of 40-49 years does not appear to add to over-diagnosed cases.”

During the 23-year follow-up, for every 1,000 women invited to earlier screening 11-and-a-half years of life were saved.

Prof Duffy said: “Reducing the lower age limit for screening from 50 to 40 years could potentially reduce breast cancer mortality.”