Older women still not screened enough.(for breast cancer)

2003 MAR 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Older women continue to underutilize mammography screening for breast cancer, despite Medicare coverage and the greater cancer risk associated with increasing age.

Findings indicate that, contrary to previous reports, the majority of older women are not routinely screened for breast cancer by mammography despite its coverage under Medicare since 1991.

"Messages to both older women and to physicians should be strongly worded to correct the misperception that mammography screening is less important as women age," wrote the authors of the study, published in the March 1, 2003, issue of Cancer.

Breast cancer is the second most frequent cancer in women and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in women. With age comes increased risk, and most breast cancer deaths occur in women 65 years and older, making age one of the most significant risk factors for breast cancer. Consequently, recent recommendations for routine mammograms every 1-2 years have included women 70 years and older who do not have major health problems.

In 1991 Medicare expanded benefits to cover screening mammography every 2 years, which began a nationwide effort to increase mammography screening rates among women 65 years and older. A previous study found that self-reported 2-year screening rates for women over 64 increased from 43% in 1990 to 64% in 1998. However, self-reported data are subject to bias, affecting the reliability of data and making the actual mammography rate for this age group less certain.

With funding from the National Cancer Institute, Harrison et al. investigated the actual rates of and trends in screening mammography among women 65 years and older and the factors that influence their utilization of mammography. They included the unique comparison of the rates for older women having any mammogram and of having more than one mammogram.

Using data from the state of Michigan's Medicare files from 1993 to 1997 the authors analyzed data from 10,000 randomly selected women 65 years or older. First, the authors asked who among the 10,000 women had ever had a mammogram in the past 5 years and if they had, the number of mammograms completed. Second, they ...