BMJ  2008;336:527 (8 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39510.379410.DB

News

Number of deaths from cancers falls after 20 years of screening in England

Susan Mayor

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

More than 100 000 breast cancers and 400 000 major cervical abnormalities have been detected in the 20 years of the NHS’s breast cancer and cervical cancer screening programmes in England, figures published this week show.

The NHS programmes include screening for breast cancer every three years for all women aged 50 to 70. All women between the ages of 25 and 64 can have cervical cancer screening tests every three to five years—women registered with a GP are invited for screening at these intervals.

More than 70 million screening tests for breast and cervical cancer have been carried out in England since the programmes began in 1988. In this period more than 18 million sets of mammograms have been taken. From these, more than 100 000 cancers have been detected—equivalent to more than 100 cancers each week since the start of the programme. Breast screening saves an estimated 1400 . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ