Epidemiol Prev
-
mammography screening in premenopausal women is still the object of controversy and the cost and harms-benefit balance is lower than the one observed for women aged 50 years or more. The reasons are the lower screening sensitivity and the lower risk of occurrence of breast cancer at younger ages. For these reasons, an annual interval is suggested for this age group, and a lower positive predictive value of the recall rate is observed in screening practice. Harms of screening are false positive rates and overdiagnosis (that is an exceeding number of cases over the women's lifetime ascribable to early diagnosis). A tailored approach to screening could both contribute to a reduction of possible harms and reduce the costs of the service screening programmes, which started to offer screening mammography to 45- 49-year-old women also in Italy, according with the suggestions of the Italian Group for Mammography Screening. Higher breast density is considered a marker of risk and, at the same time, it brings about a masking effect that decreases the screening mammography sensitivity at younger ages. ⋯ the TBST was authorised by the Ethical Committee in Florence (Tuscany Region, Central Italy) and the recruitment is still in progress through the invitation of the target population in the participating screening centres. In Florence and Veneto Region, the first round is almost completed and it confirmed the feasibility of the study and of the randomisation process.