WEDNESDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- Poorer mammographic screening outcomes in women in their 40s compared with older women are mostly due to the reduced ability of mammograms to detect cancer in that age group, as opposed to a faster tumor doubling time, according to research published online July 27 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Stephanie L. Bailey, Ph.D., of Stanford University in California, and colleagues used hypothetical breast cancer screening scenarios to estimate the median tumor size detectable on a mammogram and the mean tumor growth rate in women aged 40 to 49 and 50 to 69. The purpose of the study was to determine whether faster tumor growth rates or reduced mammographic detectability was a greater contributor to poorer mammography screening outcomes in younger women.

The screening scenarios revealed that, in the women younger than 50, lower mammographic tumor detectability accounted for 79 percent of poorer screening outcomes, and faster tumor volume doubling time accounted for 21 percent of the poorer mammography screening outcomes, compared to women in their 50s and 60s.

"This model-based analysis of screening showed that mammography threshold and doubling time varied with age. This analysis also showed that age-specific differences in the mammographic threshold contributed more than the age-specific differences in doubling time to poorer outcomes associated with screening women aged 40 to 49 years compared with women aged 50 to 69 years," the authors write. "Our results underscore the importance of continued efforts to improve technologies for early detection of breast cancer in younger women, particularly in women with dense breast tissue."

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