Ladies over 50 can safely scale back mammogram frequency after breast most cancers surgical procedure

Ladies 50 or older who de-escalated to less-frequent mammography three years after healing surgical procedure for early-stage breast most cancers had related outcomes to girls who obtained annual mammography, in response to outcomes from the Mammo-50 trial introduced on the San Antonio Breast Most cancers Symposium, held December 5-9, 2023.

Each U.S. and U.Ok. pointers suggest annual breast most cancers screening following surgical procedure to take away early-stage breast most cancers; within the U.S., annual mammography is beneficial indefinitely, and within the U.Ok., it’s endorsed for 5 years, adopted by screening each three years for sufferers 50 years and older.

Nevertheless, the optimum screening schedule has but to be evaluated in massive scientific trials, and long-term annual screening might not be essential.”

Janet Dunn, PhD, professor of scientific trials on the College of Warwick, UK

“De-escalation of mammographic surveillance reduces the burden on the well being care system, decreases the inconvenience for ladies having to endure these mammograms, and reduces the related stress of ready for outcomes,” Dunn mentioned. She added that screening-related anxiousness is understood to be worse for breast most cancers survivors in comparison with girls with no historical past of breast most cancers.

Within the section III Mammo-50 trial, Dunn and colleagues enrolled 5,235 girls who had undergone healing surgical procedure to take away their most cancers, have been freed from recurrence three years post-surgery, and have been 50 years or older on the time of analysis. Members have been randomly assigned 1:1 to obtain annual mammography or less-frequent mammography, outlined as each two years in sufferers who underwent breast conservation surgical procedure and each three years in sufferers who had a mastectomy.

After 5 years of follow-up, the breast cancer-specific survival was 98.1% and the general survival was 94.7% amongst sufferers within the annual mammography arm. For sufferers receiving much less frequent mammography, the breast cancer-specific survival was 98.3%, and the general survival was 94.5%. Equally, at 5 years, 5.9% of sufferers within the annual mammography arm and 5.5% of sufferers within the de-escalation arm had skilled a recurrence. These outcomes present that de-escalation didn’t worsen the outcomes.

Compliance with the assigned mammography schedule was decrease amongst sufferers assigned to the de-escalation arm (69%, in comparison with 83% amongst sufferers assigned to the annual arm), however a sensitivity evaluation confirmed that this had no impact on the conclusions. Moreover, a concurrent sub-study carried out annual evaluations of sufferers’ high quality of life-;together with measures of psychological wellbeing, misery, and different concerns-;utilizing 4 validated questionnaires; no variations have been detected between trial arms.

“The trial demonstrated that the outcomes from present process much less frequent mammograms have been no worse than present process annual mammograms for this group of girls,” Dunn mentioned. “You will need to perform most of these trials to streamline companies the place doable whereas not disadvantaging sufferers.”

Limitations of this research embody the applicability solely to sufferers over age 50 at analysis who’re three or extra years post-surgery.

This research was funded by the U.Ok. Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Analysis by the Well being Expertise Evaluation program and sponsored by College Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Belief. Dunn declares no conflicts of curiosity.