In line with many current medical guidelines, doctors generally recommend that their female patients be regularly screened for breast cancer with mammograms starting at age 50. However, for Black patients, it may be better to start screening years earlier, because their risk of breast cancer death in their 40s is higher than that seen in other racial groups, a new study suggests.
"The current one-size-fits-all policy to screen the entire female population from a certain age may be neither fair and equitable nor optimal," wrote the authors of the new study, published Wednesday (April 19) in the journal JAMA Network Open. "Clinical trials may be warranted to investigate whether changing screening guidelines may alter the trajectory of the disease and have a population impact," particularly among Black female patients, they wrote.
