Cancer causes & control.

摘要

We would like to submit this brief manuscript as a letter for publication in CCC. Lowery et al. [1] sought to document the incidence of breast cancer during the year following a negative mammogram so as to "facilitate identification of high-risk women who may benefit from increased surveillance." For women as a whole and for subgroups defined by demographic and clinical characteristics, they wished to accomplish the important goal of providing "information about the true burden of breast cancer." The authors approached this task by enumerating the 208,667 women in the Denver Metropolitan Area who took part in a mammography screening program during 1994-2001 and ascertaining in them (by linkage to records of the Central Colorado Cancer Registry through the end of 2002) breast cancers that were diagnosed during the year following their last negative screening mammogram. Appropriately, "screening examinations performed after a documented diagnosis of breast cancer were excluded."