ReviewBreast cancer research : BCR2015
Benefits and harms of mammography screening.
Review in Breast cancer research : BCR, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 138 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
138 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 366 citations in OpenAlex.
- Breast Cancer Care Quality Indicators in Spain: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- CA153 in Breast Secretions as a Potential Molecular Marker for Diagnosing Breast Cancer: A Meta Analysis.PloS one · 2016Pooled it
- Trial
- Ovarian cancer screening and mortality in the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS): a randomised controlled trial.Lancet (London, England) · 2016Trial
- Real-time deep learning-based vascular recognition in clinical breast photoacoustic imaging.Photoacoustics · 2026Article
- Artificial Intelligence for Mammography Ready for the Real-World: Turning Promise Into Reality.Korean journal of radiology · 2026Article
- Nipple aspirate fluid as a proximal breast liquid biopsy platform: advancing precision risk management in breast cancer.Clinical proteomics · 2026Review
- What Information on Mammographic Screening is Available to Women in Quebec, Ontario and Canada: Results from a Document Analysis.Public health ethics · 2026Article
- AI calls the bluff: differentiating benign lesions from triple-negative breast cancer cases.La Radiologia medica · 2026Article
- High reliability Ag/Ni/NiO nanowire-based SERS for cancer detection: a study on breast cancer.Nanoscale advances · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the Diagnostic Accuracy of Comercially Available AI-CAD Solution in Mammography Screening in Mexican Women (Mammo-MX Database).Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Patient Preference and Adherence in Mammography Screening: A Narrative Review.Patient preference and adherence · 2026Review
- Imaging and Diagnostic Tools for Cetacean Mammary Gland Assessment: Challenges and Future Directions for Marine Mammal Pathology, Medicine and Research.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2025Review
- Psychological Factors Influencing Pain Perception and Experience in Women Undergoing Mammography: Protocol for a Systematic Review.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- A Systematic Review of the Cost-Effectiveness of Screening Modalities for Breast Cancer in European Countries.Cancers · 2025Review
- Review of Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Breast Cancer Detection with Different Modalities: Mammography, Ultrasound, and Thermography Images.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Prediction of intraductal cancer microinfiltration based on the hierarchical fusion of peri-tumor imaging histology and dual view deep learning.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Cost-effectiveness of genetic risk-stratified screening for breast cancer in Taiwan.Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2025Article
- Exploring potent miRNA combinations for detecting early-stage breast cancer.Molecular therapy. Nucleic acids · 2025Article
- Review
78 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mammography screening for breast cancer is widely available in many countries. Initially praised as a universal achievement to improve women's health and to reduce the burden of breast cancer, the benefits and harms of mammography screening have been debated heatedly in the past years. This review discusses the benefits and harms of mammography screening in light of findings from randomized trials and from more recent observational studies performed in the era of modern diagnostics and treatment. The main benefit of mammography screening is reduction of breast-cancer related death. Relative reductions vary from about 15 to 25% in randomized trials to more recent estimates of 13 to 17% in meta-analyses of observational studies. Using UK population data of 2007, for 1,000 women invited to biennial mammography screening for 20 years from age 50, 2 to 3 women are prevented from dying of breast cancer. All-cause mortality is unchanged. Overdiagnosis of breast cancer is the main harm of mammography screening. Based on recent estimates from the United States, the relative amount of overdiagnosis (including ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive cancer) is 31%. This results in 15 women overdiagnosed for every 1,000 women invited to biennial mammography screening for 20 years from age 50. Women should be unpassionately informed about the benefits and harms of mammography screening using absolute effect sizes in a comprehensible fashion. In an era of limited health care resources, screening services need to be scrutinized and compared with each other with regard to effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and harms.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.