New draft guidance from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that most women with an average risk of breast cancer should start screening at age 40 and get screened every other year until age 74. Prior recommendations said women should begin screening at age 50, but women in their 40s with higher risk factors should consider screening at younger ages. The new guidance comes as evidence shows higher rates of breast cancer among women in their 40s, including a 2% annual increase from 2015 to 2019. The goal is to find cancer earlier when it’s treatable and curable. Breast cancer outcomes are not felt evenly across society, with Black women more likely to get aggressive cancers at a younger age and 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women. The new guidance seeks to drop the screening age for women of all races to help ease this disparity. However, screening alone won’t eliminate inequities. The updated task force guidance may align more with guidance from other major medical groups that recommend women start getting screened at a younger age. Medical experts caution that there are risks to screening too early or too often, including the risk of false positives. The new draft recommendation applies to cisgender women and all other people assigned female at birth who are at average risk of breast cancer. It does not apply to people who have a significantly higher-than-average risk of breast cancer, including breast cancer survivors and those who are predisposed because of their genetics, family history, or personal medical history.
