What is the best research on breast cancer screenings?

Breast cancer cells
This is a histologic slide of breast cancer cells that have grown out the ducts and into the surrounding tissue displacing normal cells. Stained with H&E and magnified to 200x.
File | Courtesy of National Cancer Institute 2001

The American Cancer Society has updated breast cancer screening guidelines with some significant changes that align more closely with the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force.

Women with an average risk of breast cancer can wait until 45 to start mammograms and then get them once a year.

At 55, women can go to every other year for screening.

These new guidelines join recommendations out recently that change how often women should have pelvic exams and Pap smears.

On Monday morning, Kerri Miller and her guests try to bring clarity to these new evidence-driven guidelines. Dr. Nancy Keating is a primary care physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Dr. Sandhya Pruthi, who specializes in breast cancer research at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, join Miller to sort through the latest research on breast cancer screenings.

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