Cancer Research UK : Breast cancer screening

Breast cancer screening

Breast screening saves lives by detecting breast cancer early.

During breast cancer screening, your breasts will be examined using an x-ray (mammography). This can find breast cancers at a very early stage when they are too small for you to see or feel.

Why early detection is important

Doctors can treat breast cancer more easily when it is found at an early stage. Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer in the earliest possible stage have a nine in ten chance of a successful recovery. But if the cancer is very advanced at the point of diagnosis, these odds fall to under two in ten.

Who can be screened?

In England, Wales and Scotland, women are invited for breast screening between the ages of 50–70 every three years. From 2008, the programme in England will be extended to cover women aged 47-73. This expansion will be completed by 2012.
In Northern Ireland, women are invited between the ages of 50–64 every three years.

Because it is done on a three-year cycle, this means that women will get their first invitation after they turn 50 but before they are 54.

Your breast cancer risk continues to increase the older you get. When you are over 70, you won’t receive an invitation letter but your doctor can arrange an appointment for you if you would like to attend screening.

Younger women are not invited for screening because mammography is less effective at detecting cancer in them. Younger breast tissue is more dense, which makes tumours harder to spot.

History of the screening programme

The breast cancer screening programme was launched by the Department of Health in 1988 and was the first of its kind in the world. At first, women aged 50–64 were invited for screening every three years. Since 2003, women aged 65–70 have also been invited in England, Wales and Scotland.

Research funded by Cancer Research UK and others has helped to improve the screening programme. Our researchers found that:

taking two images of the breast from different angles was better at spotting cancers than taking just one image. Now, all breast screening centres use this ‘two-view’ method (though in Scotland it is still being phased in).
for women over the age of 50, the ideal gap between screening sessions is three years.

Does it work?

Breast screening is very effective. The latest research suggests that the programme saves 1,400 lives every year in England alone.

Studies by Cancer Research UK and others have found that screening has reduced breast cancer death rates by up to a quarter in women within the screening age range.

An international expert group evaluated all the research on breast screening and found that for every 500 women screened, one life will be saved.

Our current research

Cancer Research UK continues to fund research to improve the effectiveness of the national breast cancer screening programme.

Dr Fiona Gilbert in Aberdeen is testing computer analysis as a way of speeding up and improving the breast screening process.

Dr Ros Eeles in Surrey is studying a screening method called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that could effectively detect breast cancers in younger women, particularly those with an inherited breast cancer gene.

Find out more

When it comes to finding cancer early, screening is only one part of the story. As well as attending screening, you can help to detect breast cancer early by regularly checking your breasts for unusual changes.

Your risk of breast cancer is also affected by aspects of your lifestyle, including:

Our CancerStats section has lots of detailed information on breast screening, while our patient information website, CancerHelp UK, has more information about what it’s like to go for a mammogram and what happens after the screening.

You can find out more about breast cancer and its signs and symptoms by ordering our breast cancer leaflet.