Mammogram

What is breast screening?

Cancer screening involves testing what look like healthy people for signs. Signs that could show that a cancer is developing.

Breast screening uses a test called mammography. This involves taking x-rays of the breasts. Screening can help to find breast cancers early. I.e. when they are too small to see or feel. These tiny breast cancers are usually easier to treat than larger ones.

Remember that screening will not prevent you from getting breast cancer. Its aim is to detect early breast cancers.

In the UK breast screening detects cancer in around 9 out of every 1,000 women having screening.

Procedure

Breast screening takes 2 x-rays of each breast. The x-rays are called mammograms. You have one mammogram from above and one from the side on each breast.

After breast screening ask the radiographer about when to expect your result. Most women have a normal reading.

Benefits of breast screening

Breast cancers found by screening are generally at an early stage. Very early breast cancers:

• are usually easier to treat,
• may need less treatment, and
• are more likely to be cured

Current evidence suggests that breast screening reduces the number of deaths from breast cancer. In the UK alone it results in about 1,300 less deaths per year.

Almost all women diagnosed with breast cancer at the earliest possible stage survive. For at least five years after diagnosis. Likelihood of cure also increases.