Doctor Group Updates Guidance on Breast Cancer Screening

Women designated at average risk for breast cancer and aged 50 to 74 should receive biennial screening mammography, the group recommends.

Image taken during a mammotome-guided macrobiopsy on a patient who presented lesions during a mammography exam, at the Institut Curie in Paris, on March 8, 2006. Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images

Some middle-aged women should not automatically receive regular mammography, a U.S.-based group of doctors says in new guidance.

Women aged 40 to 49 who are at average risk of breast cancer should discuss with their doctors the benefits and harms of screening, as well as the risk of the cancer, the American College of Physicians said in the guidance, released on April 17 in the group’s Annals of Internal Medicine journal.