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Cancer Screening, Diagnosis and Care

European guidelines on breast cancer screening and diagnosis


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3. Screening ages and frequencies

Women aged 70-74: annual vs. biennial screening

Issued on: February 2017

Healthcare question

Should annual mammography screening vs. biennial mammography screening be used for early detection of breast cancer in women aged 70 to 74?

Recommendation

For asymptomatic women aged 70 to 74 with an average risk of breast cancer, the ECIBC's Guidelines Development Group (GDG) recommends not implementing annual mammography screening, in the context of an organised population-based screening programme

Recommendation strength

Strong recommendation
Very low certainty of the evidence

Justification

The GDG agreed that this recommendation is strong due to the large costs of annual screening, despite the very low certainty of the evidence.

Considerations for implementation and policy making

The GDG does not feel that annual screening programmes are currently in place in any jurisdictions in Europe and therefore there would be no implementation considerations for this strong recommendation.

Research priorities

  • The GDG agreed that more research on the effectiveness of the different screening intervals, through comparative studies, would be helpful due to the very low certainty of the evidence.
  • The GDG felt that increased cost effectiveness data, having more contextualised costs and cost-effectiveness analysis and from other settings would be helpful for future recommendations; this should include checking the consistency of cost-effectiveness models with new research from trials on breast cancer screening and natural history of breast cancer disease. Also many countries have cost analysis but they are not publicly available, and this should be shared with the scientific community. This priority may apply to all other scre ening interval recommendations.

Supporting material

yes