Scheduling mammography screening for the early detection of breast cancer in Korean women

摘要

Objective To propose an efficient screening schedule for breast cancer among Korean women usingnthe stochastic model in which the age-specific incidence rate was considered.nSetting Female breast cancer data in the Korea Central Cancer Registry 2002.nMethods The stochastic model was based on the threshold method, in which the schedule isndetermined by a pre-specified threshold value. The threshold value was defined as the probability ofnbeing in a preclinical state of breast cancer at age 40 years. The sensitivity of the mammography wasnspecified as 0.7. Two models for mean sojourn time (MST) in the preclinical state were considered;nMSTs for Model I were 2 (ageso50 years), 3 (ages 50–59 years), and 4 years (ages X60 years), andnMSTs for Model II were 3, 4, and 5 years for the corresponding age groups.nResults The threshold method for Model I generated 19 examinations within the screening ages ofn40–69 years. Each screening time was determined at ages 40.0, 41.6, 43.2, 44.8, 46.0, 47.2,n48.4, 49.6, 50.7, 51.7, 52.7, 53.7, 54.7, 56.2, 57.8, 59.4, 61.3, 63.1, and 64.9 years. Thenschedule sensitivity of Model I was 64.2%, which was higher than that (57.5%) of the biennial periodicnschedule. Model II included 11 screenings between the ages of 40 and 69 years and also showed anhigher schedule sensitivity, especially for women aged 40 years as compared with the biennialnscreening.nConclusions This finding suggests that the threshold screening schedule for breast cancer increasenthe schedule sensitivity by reflecting the age-specific incidence rate of a population.