Breast-cancer screening less effective for women with implants

CHICAGO - Breast implants make it harder to spot cancer in mammograms but there is no evidence that women with implants are being diagnosed with more advanced cases of the disease, a new study has found.

Mammograms detected breast cancer in slightly fewer than half of women with breast implants who had the disease and had shown symptoms, compared with a detection rate of two-thirds among women without implants, the researchers found.

There was no indication in the study of seven US mammogram registries that women with breast implants were diagnosed with more severe cases of the disease that killed roughly 40,000 American women in 2002.

Although screening was less sensitive for women with implants, there was no evidence that this meant the disease was more advanced when detected, said study author Diana Miglioretti of the Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Women with breast augmentation should be encouraged to have routine screening mammography at recommended intervals," she wrote.

There were nearly 270,000 cosmetic breast augmentation surgeries performed in the United States in 2002.

Breast cancer is second to lung cancer as the leading cause of cancer-related death.

Government statistics show that in 2002, an estimated 203,500 new US cases were diagnosed.

- REUTERS