Women aged 55 years and older should transition to biennial, instead of annual screening. In addition, clinical breast examination is not recommended for breast cancer screening among average-risk women at any age.
The recommendations, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, updated the ACS's breast cancer screening guideline in 2003.
The new guideline also gave women the option of starting annual screening as early as age 40 and recommended that women 55 years and older should have the opportunity to continue screening annually.
"After careful examination of the burden of disease among women aged 40 to 54 years, the guideline development group concluded that the lesser, but not insignificant, burden of disease for women aged 40 to 44 years and the higher cumulative risk of adverse outcomes no longer warranted a direct recommendation to begin screening at age 40 years," the ACS said.
"In conclusion, the ACS recommendations are made in the context of maximizing reductions in breast cancer mortality and reducing years of life lost while minimizing the associated harms among the population of women in the United States," it said.
By Ruchi Singh
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
