Mammograms vital in reducing cancer death rates
 Mammography has contributed to a pronounced drop in the death rate from breast cancer, according to a study sponsored by the US National Cancer Institute, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine recently.
The research concludes that between 28 – 65% of the sharp decrease in breast cancer deaths from 1990 – 2000 was due to mammograms. The rest was attributed to new drug therapies.
More than 80 per cent of American women aged 40 and over have mammograms. Dr Russell Harris, a member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, which issues medical practice guidelines, said the new finding meant that women could feel confident that screening played a role in preventing breast cancer deaths. He added that this is not something he would have said before the study was published.
The study was designed to help researchers understand why the breast cancer death rate has dropped so drastically and so rapidly - 24 per cent from 1990 to 2000. The National Cancer Institute asked seven research teams to explain what had occurred. The death rate was nearly flat from 1975 until 1990, when it was 49.7 per 100,000 women ages 40 to 75. In 2000, the rate dropped, to 38 per 100,000 for that age group. In the interim period, mammography for women older than 40 had increased dramatically. In 1985, about 20 per cent of women were estimated to have had mammograms in the prior two years. In 2000, the figure was 70 per cent.
At the same time, chemotherapy and hormonal therapy with tamoxifen, which blocks the effects of estrogen that can fuel breast cancer, had come on the scene, and their use had spread rapidly. To develop their estimates, the researchers built computer models of the disease, its detection and its treatment, asking whether they could explain the falling death rate from 1990 to 2000. The answer, they all agreed, was that they could explain it only if both mammograms and treatment were having an effect.
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