Breast Screening in women aged over 70 v1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Does Breast Screening Detect Biologically Relevant Breast Cancer in Women Aged Over 70? A retrospective study in a single centre.
IRAS ID
339305
Contact name
Caitin Bennett
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 5 days
Research summary
Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer diagnosed in the UK, and a quarter of these are diagnosed in women aged 75 and over. However, only clients between 50 and 70 years of age are currently invited for a screening mammogram, which means that a significant number of women could have malignant disease that would not be detected by current breast screening programmes.
Varying cancer detection rates in patients aged over 70 have been reported. The more recent of these studies were performed in countries with two-yearly breast screening, so an up-to-date study is needed from a three-yearly breast screening program such as we have in the UK.
This study aims to assess the type of breast cancer detected in clients aged over 70 and whether the incidence and type of breast cancer support an extension of the invited population.
A cross-sectional design has been selected in order to evaluate cancer detected in clients aged over 70, and purposive sampling will be used to include all clients who had a screening mammogram between 2017 and 2020. A retrospective approach is indicated as the data required has already been collected.
Data will be gathered from an organisational database at a single breast screening centre and will include information on tumour type, size and grade in addition to the nodal and hormone receptor status. Descriptive statistics will be used to analyse the data. Participants will be divided into two groups: one comprising clients aged 71 to 79 and the other those over 80.
This study could provide information to support a recommendation for further evaluation of one of the following options: extension of the age range, continuation of the current age range or the introduction of a maximum screening age.REC name
N/A
REC reference
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