With younger women getting breast cancer, national panel lowers mammogram screening age to 40

A national advisory panel significantly lowered the age recommendations for screening mammography on Tuesday, saying that all women should start breast cancer screening at age 40, rather than 50, and continue every other year until age 74.

The previous recommendations from the panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, suggested that women make an individual choice on getting mammography from ages 40 to 49.

The new guidelines, first published last year as a draft open for public comment, are propelled in part by concern over rising rates of breast cancer among younger women.

“More women in their 40s are developing breast cancer,” said John Wong, one of the task force members and a professor of medicine at Tufts University. “That’s been 2% per year increase from 2015 to 2019. Which means screening provides more benefit because the risk of developing breast cancer is higher.”

The changes, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also bring the task force closer in line with guidelines from other health organizations. The American Cancer Society, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and others have published guidelines suggesting average-risk women consider starting screening at age 40 or 45. But the task force’s recommendations tend to carry more weight, partially because the Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to fully cover task force recommendations with a grade B or higher.

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