More evidence that regular mammograms save lives

(Dennis Thompson/ HealthDay) — A woman who gets her regular mammograms as scheduled is much less likely to die from breast cancer than if she skips screenings, a new study shows.

Women with breast cancer who underwent all her scheduled mammograms had a survival rate of 80%, compared with survival rates as low as 59% for women who didn’t participate in any screenings, researchers found.

“The purpose of mammography is to detect breast cancer during the few years it can be seen on a mammogram, but before symptoms are apparent,” explained researcher Robert Smith, senior vice president and director of the American Cancer Society Center (ACS) for Cancer Screening, in Atlanta.

“If a woman unknowingly has breast cancer and misses or postpones her mammogram during this time when she has no symptoms, but her breast cancer is growing and perhaps spreading, then the window for early detection will be lost,” Smith added. (…)