Reduction in breast cancer deaths is due to treatment not screening, finds study

The fall in breast cancer mortality seen after widespread mammography screening was introduced in the US was mainly due to improved systemic therapy and not earlier detection of tumours, a comparison of national cancer data before and after the introduction of screening programmes has shown.

Researchers analysed data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results population based cancer registry programme from 1975 to 2012 to calculate the distribution of tumour size and size specific incidence of breast cancer in …