Everyone Is Talking About Mammograms, But Many Women Don't Get Them - US News and World Report

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/cancer/2009/11/25/everyone-is-talking-about-mammograms-but-many-women-dont-get-them.html

The recent brouhaha over breast cancer screening is about recommendations—what different experts say women of different ages should do. But even where the experts widely agree, a significant number of women simply aren't going in for screening mammography. In 2005, just 71.8 percent of women between the ages of 50 and 64 and 72.5 percent of women ages 65 to 74 had received a mammogram within the previous two years, according to government figures. "We are still not doing a very good job for women when there is no controversy over whether they should be screened," says Amal Trivedi, assistant professor in the department of community health at Brown University's Alpert Medical School. (The United States Preventive Services Task Force's new guidelines call for women not to be routinely screened in their 40s but to discuss the ups and downs of the test with their physicians. They say that women should start getting mammograms every other year at age 50 and that there's not enough evidence to weigh in on whether women 75 and older should be screened. The American Cancer Society recommends annual mammograms for women 40 and up.)