What are the current breast cancer screening recommendations?

Dear Anonymous,

The truth is that the recommendations that come from these different professional bodies can be variable, and sometimes that's confusing for women.

So there have been screening guidelines that have said women could start screening every year at 40. Some have said start screening at 50.One thing that I think all of the professional organizations would agree with is that the most lives are saved if you start annual screening mammograms for average-risk women at age 40.

But sometime around age 25 — latest by age 30 — women should have a conversation with their doctor about their personal breast cancer risk. Black women, women of African descent, and women of Ashkenazi Jewish descent have an increased risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer while they’re young. If you're at the intermediate risk level or the high risk level, your screenings would likely need to start way before 40. 

When you're scheduling this visit, let your doctor know that you’d like to have a risk-assessment conversation. And during that convo, the doctor will walk you through many steps to try and estimate which risk factors are present in your own life.For example, they might ask if you have a personal/family history of breast or other cancers,or if you had radiation therapy on your chest before the age of 30. 

Then, based on that conversation, they can help you estimate your risk. The truth is that most breast cancers are diagnosed in people without a family history of breast cancer. So about 75% to 80% of breast cancers are diagnosed in people with no family history whatsoever. A lot of the time, people don't have those genes or the inherited genes that cause breast cancer. The environment, our lifestyle, and our choices also factor into creating risks of our very own.