HealthImaging (8/30, Walter) reports that research suggests “starting annual screening mammography for breast cancer at age 40 helps detect a significant number of cancers.” The article points out that “some advocacy groups, including the American College of Radiology, recommend starting annual screening at age 40, while other groups, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), recommend women wait and begin biennial screening at age 50.” The study was published in the American Journal of Roentgenology. 

Reuters (8/21, Seaman) reports a study published in Cancer found that annual mammograms beginning at the age of 40 would prevent the most deaths due to breast cancer, finding that guidance suggesting yearly screenings could reduce the number of deaths among women aged 40 to 80 by 40 percent compared to a reduction of 23 to 31 percent based on current screening recommendations. 

The Radiology Business Journal (8/11) reported that while “breast MRI is often used to evaluate newly diagnosed breast cancers...there is some evidence that suggests this practice can lead to delayed surgical treatment.” Research on 189 women diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer found “that the median time to treatment was 32 days for patients who received pretreatment breast MRI and 34.5 days for patients whodid not receive pretreatment breast MRI.” Meanwhile, “even when a second lesion was discovered during the MRI, leading to an additional biopsy, it ‘did not indicate any significant delayed surgical treatment.’” The findings were published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.