Key Points
The new recommendation decreases the age to start screenings by 10 years...
If women start getting screened for breast cancer at age 40 10 years earlier than the current recommendation thousands of lives could be saved, a national health panel said in an updated recommendation document released Tuesday...
The US Preventive Services Task Force said in its new draft recommendation that women should start getting mammograms, or X-rays of the breasts, at 40 years old to screen for breast cancer..
Carol Mangione, an internal medicine specialist at UCLA who co-authored the new recommendation and used to serve as the Chair of the US Preventive Services Task Force, told NPR the new guidelines could cut breast cancer mortality rates by 20%...
The Task Force previously upped the age to start screening from 40 to 50 in 2009 out of concern that over-testing could lead to more harm than good, including biopsies that end up negative or unnecessary treatment in young women, the New York Times reported...
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13, Oct, 23The current consensus suggests that women should have the option to start annual breast cancer screening with mammograms from the age of 40.