Breast Cancer Screening (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version

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Changes to This Summary (02/07/2017)

The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.

Description of the Evidence

Updated statistics with estimated new cases and deaths for 2018 (cited American Cancer Society as reference 1).

Mammography

Added text to state that as a consequence of screening mammography, greater numbers of breast cancers with indolent behavior are now being identified, resulting in potential overtreatment; in a secondary analysis of a randomized trial of tamoxifen versus no systemic therapy in patients with early breast cancer, the authors utilized the 70-gene MammaPrint assay and identified 15% of patients at ultra-low risk, with 20-year disease-specific survival rates of 97% in the tamoxifen group and 94% in the control group, and the frequency of such ultra-low risk cancers in the screened population is likely around 25% (cited Esserman et al. as reference 95).

This summary is written and maintained by the PDQ Screening and Prevention Editorial Board, which is editorially independent of NCI. The summary reflects an independent review of the literature and does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH. More information about summary policies and the role of the PDQ Editorial Boards in maintaining the PDQ summaries can be found on the About This PDQ Summary and PDQ® - NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database pages.

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