To wonder whether we should get yearly mammograms over 40?

[Cortina]

Following on from the thread about American women and health screening etc, I've been wondering about mammograms.

Friends in Asia and the US have these yearly over 40. If you are working abroad a medical check up is often part of the package and you'll be booked in for a yearly mammogram.

These sort of mammograms have picked up breast cancer for two friends - aged 41 and 43. For one they detected the cancer before it had become apparent - they didn't need chemo just radiotherapy and have now made a complete recovery.

They tell me the reason we don't do mammograms here in UK for 40 plus is due to cost. I've been reading up and it seems its not that simple, there can be false positives etc. However, I wonder whether it's something we should be doing too even if we don't have a family history of breast cancer?

I know this is an old thread but I’m reading it with interest. I was diagnosed with breast cancer over a year ago when I was 43. I had no idea about breast cancer and no other woman in my big family has had it ( my mother, 1 sister, 8 aunties and my two grandmothers). Then, since my diagnosis I’ve learn a lot about it and was shocked to see that in the supports groups I belong to there are far too many ladies diagnosed in their 40s, before the mammograms recommended age of 47 plus. The country I am from in South America recommends mammograms from 40 years onwards and I am now a firm believer this should be the case.

My breast cancer was caught at age 43 during my annual mammogram which I had due to dense tissue. No other risk factors and caught very early. If it catches women like me us with it. Btw the tumor was so deep I never would've felt it during a self exam

Pleased to hear your cancer was caught very early, mine was too luckily, my symptoms were pain on my breast and not a lump.
I do hope mammograms can be introduced earlier from age 40, I also know of many cases in which ladies discover the have bc in their first routine mammogram at 47 plus and sometimes it’s too late considering not always you get the obvious symptoms with bc.

The benefits of any screening are not as simple as 'catching it early'. Here are some of the 'other side' of the screening debate related to mammograms:

www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2055
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60123-4/fulltext
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26756588

Of course, every woman who has a mastectomy/other treatment will believe this has saved their life. Sadly, this is not the case.

The last link contains the reason why it is over-50s who are invited for screening - because that's where screening makes a statistical difference.

This is a link to a radio programme that explains it all in simple terms - with a transcript if people prefer to read.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b049828q

Ooops, this is the link from the last paragraph

My GPs told me we get them from 47 in our area (SW)