Study: Only half of women getting recommended mammograms

• Reprints

An influential government task force caused an uproar last year when it recommended that breast cancer screening start at 50, not 40, for most women and not be done every year.

But only half of women over 40 were getting annual mammograms to begin with, according to a new survey of insurance claims released Thursday.

And nearly 40 percent of women 50 and over do not get mammograms every other year, as suggested last year by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Despite the “very vocal population” of women who criticized the task force for recommending less frequent mammograms, the new findings illustrate “there’s still a large number of women who are not taking advantage of mammography,” said lead study author Dr. Milayna Subar, of Medco Health Solutions.

The study, presented at a breast cancer symposium in San Antonio, is based on insurance claims for more than 1 million women between 2006 and 2009.

Past studies have shown similarly low screening rates, particularly among minority women.

In September, the Dartmouth Atlas Project reported that Chicago has the lowest mammography-screening rates in the country for female Medicare recipients.

Reasons women may skip mammograms, even if they have insurance, include confusion over the guidelines, lack of convenient access to mammograms and fear of finding cancer, said Dr. Peter M. Jokich, director of the section of breast imaging at Rush University Medical Center.

While mammography reduces breast cancer mortality, experts acknowledge that the test detects slow-growing cancers that never would have become life-threatening, misses other cancers and sometimes results in stressful false positives. The American Cancer Society still recommends annual screening for women over 40.

Women who aren’t sure when or how often to get screened should consult their doctor, Subar said.

Comment at suntimes.com.