Annual Screening Mammography Continues to be Recommended in Updated NCCN Guidelines for Breast Cancer Screening and Diagnosis

"For women age 40 and over, the benefits of annual breast screening continue to outweigh the risks," says Therese B. Bevers, M.D., of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and chair of the NCCN Guidelines Panel for Breast Cancer Screening and Diagnosis.

Annual clinical breast examinations and screening mammography, with breast awareness encouraged is stated in the NCCN Guidelines as a recommendation for women 40 years and older at normal risk. Although the interval of screening in women aged 40 to 49 remains controversial, the NCCN Guidelines clearly recommend annual screenings since mammograms can often detect a lesion two years before the lesion is discovered by a clinical breast examination.

"Age should not be an absolute when determining who should receive mammography screening," says Dr. Bevers. "It is imperative to consider the patient's individual risk factors when considering an appropriate screening routine."

Dr. Bevers notes that adhering to a risk-based assessment method reinforces the concept that physicians should discuss the benefits and risks of screening with their patients.

The intent of the NCCN Guidelines for Breast Cancer Screening and Diagnosis is to provide health care providers with a practical, consistent framework for screening and evaluating a spectrum of breast lesions. However, the NCCN Guidelines Panel emphasizes that clinical judgment should always be an important component of the optimal management of a patient.

NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are developed and updated through an evidence-based process with explicit review of the scientific evidence integrated with expert judgment by multidisciplinary panels of physicians from NCCN Member Institutions. The most recent version of this and all the NCCN Guidelines are available free of charge at NCCN.org.

About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The NCCN Member Institutions are:

• City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA
• Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center | Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, MA
• Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, Durham, NC
• Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA
• Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle, WA
• The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD
• Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
• H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa, FL
• The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, Columbus, OH
• Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY
• Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO
• St. Jude Children's Research Hospital/University of Tennessee Cancer Institute, Memphis, TN
• Stanford Comprehensive Cancer Center, Stanford, CA
• University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center, Birmingham, AL
• UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA
• University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, MI
• UNMC Eppley Cancer Center at The Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE
• The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
• Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, TN.

For more information, visit NCCN.org.

Have More Questions

U-M Cancer AnswerLine™, 800-865-1125 U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center

Media Contact: Megan Martin, NCCN; telephone: 215-690-0576; or email: martin@nccn.org

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