Women should they continue mammography screening after age 70?
There is some evidence that mammography can reduce mortality by breast cancer among women over the age of 70. In studies involving thousands of women, there were fewer cases of metastatic breast cancer in patients undergoing mammography screening than in those who did not. The metastatic cancer is the spread of cancer, through the blood or lymphatic system, a part of the body to another. The metastatic breast cancer is almost always fatal.
Among 10000 women 70 years if all of them have a screening mammography for 10 years, 10 deaths per breast cancer would be avoided. This means that in patients over the age of 70, mammograms can prevent a death of breast cancer for every 1000 women screened regularly for 10 years. As for women of all ages, there are potential risks to make a mammography screening after 69 years, including subsequent testing to determine whether or not you have breast cancer. In addition to women subjected to screening mammography are more likely than women to have tracked diagnosed with cancer in situ. (See Question 17) and the interest to treat cancer in situ in patients older, who are more likely to die before the cancer becomes invasive in situ, is not known.
