Mammograms: what you need to know

Thanks to new data collected by Breast Screen Aotearoa, we now know that regular mammograms decrease your chance of dying from breast cancer by 39%.

Perhaps even more significantly, if your cancer was diagnosed through a mammogram, your risk of dying from that cancer is 45% lower than if it was diagnosed after ‘finding a lump’.

Thanks to New Zealand’s national screening programme, mammograms are free for women aged 45 – 69, which means all women of this age can benefit from frequent mammograms. But what about women younger than 45? Or older than 69? Here’s the run down on what you should be doing and why, for women of all ages.

If you're aged between 45 and 50:

Women aged 45-50 are eligible for free mammograms every two years. We recommend that you consider paying for a mammogram in the years in between, so that you're being screened every year. Cancers tend to grow faster in younger women, so at this age, it's beneficial to be screened every year.

If you're aged between 50 and 69:

Women in this age group are also eligible for free mammograms every two years. Cancers can still pop up in between mammograms, so make sure you're still self-checking, and show any changes to your doctor.

What about women younger than 45?

If you’re between 40 and 45, we recommend you consider paying for mammograms. Your risk of getting breast cancer is steadily rising in your forties, and you may want to talk to your doctor about whether you should be starting mammograms early.

Young women (for the purposes of this article – women under 40) are still at risk of breast cancer, but that risk is lower. Unfortunately, when young women get breast cancer, it’s more likely to be the aggressive, hard-to-treat kind. So why aren’t young women funded for mammograms?

It’s all about breast density. Young women usually have dense breast tissue, which makes tumours harder to spot on a mammogram. Because of that, screening isn't recommended to women under 40, unless you've got a particularly high risk of breast cancer.

Instead, the best prevention for young women is to know the shape and feel of their breasts. If you detect any changes, see your doctor as soon as you can. Go to anychanges.co.nz to get up to scratch on breast self-checks.

What about women older than 69?

Older women (those aged 70 and above) actually have a higher risk of breast cancer than women in their fifties. So how come screening isn’t extended to them?

We’re working on it. We’ve recently presented a petition to parliament requesting they raise the screening age to 74. Ten thousand kiwis signed the petition, and we hope that the Ministry of Health will soon be able to extend screening to this age bracket.

In the meantime, we recommend paying for mammograms in your 70s if you can afford to, and you’re still in good health. We’ve got a fantastic Screen70+ tool on our website that will help you decide if you should be continuing to get mammograms in your 70s.

It’s important to keep track of when in your life you should be getting mammograms. If you’re of screening age, you can use our online mammogram reminder tool to make sure you don’t miss out. If you’re going for your first, head over to our mammograms page where you can watch a video that runs through what to expect.

If you've got any questions about mammograms, you can ask Sarah, our breast nurse. Call her on 0800 BCNURSE.