Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health logoLink to Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
. 1989 Jun;43(2):107–114. doi: 10.1136/jech.43.2.107

The Swedish two county trial of mammographic screening for breast cancer: recent results and calculation of benefit.

L Tabar 1, G Fagerberg 1, S W Duffy 1, N E Day 1
PMCID: PMC1052811  PMID: 2512366

Abstract

The Swedish two county trial of breast cancer screening is now in its tenth year. This paper presents detailed results on mortality from breast cancer and from all other causes, and on the population denominators at risk for each of the first 8 years of follow up, for each county separately. These data represent a two year update on the last major report. Results show an increasingly significant deficit in deaths from breast cancer among the 77,092 women invited to screening relative to the 56,000 not invited (RR = 0.68, p = 0.002), with no significant difference between the effects of screening in the two counties (p = 0.5). These results remain the same when adjusted for age. Analysis of all cause deaths shows no significant effect of screening (p = 0.5), nor was there any significant effect of screening on deaths from all causes other than breast cancer (p = 0.9). The rates of deaths from intercurrent illness in breast cancer cases were almost identical in the group invited to screening and the group not invited (p = 0.7). This result remained the same when adjusted for age. We calculate that in the age group 50-69 at entry, one breast cancer death was prevented per 4000 woman/years, per 1460 mammographic examinations, per 13.5 biopsies, and per 7.4 breast cancers detected.

Full text

PDF
107

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Adami H. O., Malker B., Holmberg L., Persson I., Stone B. The relation between survival and age at diagnosis in breast cancer. N Engl J Med. 1986 Aug 28;315(9):559–563. doi: 10.1056/NEJM198608283150906. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Andersson I., Fagerberg G., Lundgren B., Tabár L. Breast cancer screening in Sweden. The single modality approach. Radiologe. 1980 Dec;20(12):608–611. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Berry G. The analysis of mortality by the subject-years method. Biometrics. 1983 Mar;39(1):173–184. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Breast cancer screening. Lancet. 1985 Jul 13;2(8446):94–95. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Day N. E., Baines C. J., Chamberlain J., Hakama M., Miller A. B., Prorok P. UICC project on screening for cancer: report of the workshop on screening for breast cancer. Meeting held in Helsinki, Finland, on April 7-9, 1986. Int J Cancer. 1986 Sep 15;38(3):303–308. doi: 10.1002/ijc.2910380302. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Day N. E., Chamberlain J. Screening for breast cancer: workshop report. Eur J Cancer Clin Oncol. 1988 Jan;24(1):55–59. doi: 10.1016/0277-5379(88)90176-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Fagerberg G., Baldetorp L., Gröntoft O., Lundström B., Månson J. C., Nordenskjöld B. Effects of repeated mammographic screening on breast cancer stage distribution. Results from a randomised study of 92 934 women in a Swedish county. Acta Radiol Oncol. 1985 Nov-Dec;24(6):465–473. doi: 10.3109/02841868509134418. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Skrabanek P. Breast cancer screening. Lancet. 1985 Oct 26;2(8461):941–941. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(85)90866-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Skrabanek P. False premises and false promises of breast cancer screening. Lancet. 1985 Aug 10;2(8450):316–320. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(85)90362-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Tabàr L., Gad A. Screening for breast cancer: the Swedish trial. Radiology. 1981 Jan;138(1):219–222. doi: 10.1148/radiology.138.1.7005939. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Tabár L., Faberberg G., Day N. E., Holmberg L. What is the optimum interval between mammographic screening examinations? An analysis based on the latest results of the Swedish two-county breast cancer screening trial. Br J Cancer. 1987 May;55(5):547–551. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1987.112. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Tabár L., Fagerberg C. J., Gad A., Baldetorp L., Holmberg L. H., Gröntoft O., Ljungquist U., Lundström B., Månson J. C., Eklund G. Reduction in mortality from breast cancer after mass screening with mammography. Randomised trial from the Breast Cancer Screening Working Group of the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare. Lancet. 1985 Apr 13;1(8433):829–832. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(85)92204-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Wright C. J. Breast cancer screening: a different look at the evidence. Surgery. 1986 Oct;100(4):594–598. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Wright C. J. Should the hunt for nonpalpable breast lesions be called off? Can J Surg. 1986 Sep;29(5):299–300. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES