Screening for breast cancer ‘should start from 35’

WOMEN at risk of breast cancer should be screened from the age of 35 to pick up thousands of cases earlier and save lives, experts have said.

In a trial, annual mammograms for younger women detected the disease when tumours were far smaller and before the cancer had spread, giving patients a much better chance of survival.

The Government is due to review the guidelines on screening, and is now being urged to begin mammograms earlier for people with a family background of the disease.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, the chief executive of Breast Cancer Now, which funded the trial, said: “We believe the findings could be practice changing.”

Experts led by a team at the University of Manchester screened 2,899 women aged 35 to 39 who were at risk of cancer due to family history and compared the results to a group who had not undergone screening early.

In the early-screening group, eight out of 10 tumours were detected when they were smaller than 2cm, and just 20 per cent had spread to lymph nodes.

In unscreened women, just 45 per cent of cancers were less than 2cm.

The study found that if at-risk women were screened earlier, up to 79 per cent would still be alive after 10 years compared with 71 per cent today.

Prof Gareth Evans, the study’s lead author, hailed the results as “very promising”. He said: “Our trial shows mammography screening is effective in detecting tumours earlier in this younger age group, and lays the groundwork for extending this screening in women at moderate or high risk down to women aged 35 to 39 from ages 40 to 49.”

Baroness Morgan said more research was now needed, including on the potential costs of extending screening.