Screening for breast cancer

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Abstract
In England and Wales 17,000 new cases of breast cancer in women are registered each year and the annual death toll amounts to 11,000 women (Registrar-General Statistical Review, 1972). There has been no reduction in the mortality from the disease for several generations; half the women die within five years of diagnosis and two-thirds within ten years (Brinkley and Haybittle, 1975). Despite this, breast cancer is a curable disease in that 20% to 30% of patients diagnosed as having early breast cancer will enjoy a normal lifespan without further obvious trouble, following treatment (Baum, 1976). The improved results seen in T1NO lesions (Cutler, 1968) i.e. a primary tumour less than 2 cm in size without nodal involvement, has stimulated interest in the possibility of detecting early breast cancers via mass screening programmes. The initial results of mass screening for cancer of the breast, and indeed the whole concept and feasibility of such programmes were extensively reviewed at the Third International ...