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How Do
We Know Mammograms Save Lives
Between 1950
and the late 1980s, overall death rates from breast cancer
were relatively stable, according to the American Cancer
Society publication, Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2001-2002.
The death rates
for breast cancer then began to fall, dropping by about
1.6% each year between 1989 and 1995. Between 1995 and 1998,
the drop in the rates picked up speed, declining about 3.4%
each year.
Among the women
screened with mammography between 1988 and 1996 *, deaths
from breast cancer dropped by 63% compared
to the 10 years before, when mammography wasn't readily
available.
Among the women
who didn't take advantage of the screening program, there
was no statistically significant drop in breast cancer death
rates between the two 10-year periods, even though during
that time treatments were improving.
* -
Published in May 2001 in Cancer (Vol. 91, No.9).
+ - Published October 27, 2005, in The New England Journal
of Medicine
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