CA Cancer J Clin 1997;47:150-153 150 Ca—A cancer Journal for Clinicians On March 7–9, 1997, the American Can- cer Society convened a workshop to con- sider new scientific findings related to breast cancer screening and to determine whether these new findings warrant a change in the existing ACS guidelines for the early detection of breast cancer. This meeting was proposed in June 1995 but postponed twice in order to benefit from new data related to screening women ages 40 to 49 years from two sources, a meeting in Falun, Sweden, in March 1996 and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Conference that was announced just after the Falun meeting and held in January 1997. 1,2 Although data presented at these meetings provided further support for the benefit of mammography for women ages 40 to 49 years, these new data have not been universally persuasive. 3 In fact, even though acknowledgment is growing that the accumulated results from the ran- domized clinical trials do show a benefit from screening for this age group, differ- ences of opinion exist as to the value of including women ages 40 to 49 years in recommendations for regular breast can- cer screening. This difference in opinion regarding breast cancer screening policy is largely the result of different criteria for evidence-based medicine or values re- garding cost-effectiveness. However, the ACS had concluded that the new data ac- cumulated since the last review of its guidelines in 1993 had potentially positive implications for the overall question of benefit from mammography in women ages 40 to 49 and, in particular, for recom- mendations about the periodicity of mammography in that age group. Annual Mammography for Women Beginning at Age 40 After a day and a half of scientific presen- tations and workgroup discussions, work- shop participants concluded that the new data warranted the following succinct recommendation: The American Cancer Society recommends annual mammogra- phy for women beginning at age 40. In ad- dition, cessation of annual screening is American Cancer Society Guidelines for the Early Detection of Breast Cancer: Update 1997 A. Marilyn Leitch, MD; Gerald D. Dodd, MD; Mary Costanza, MD; Michael Linver, MD; Peter Pressman, MD; LaMar McGinnis, MD; and Robert A. Smith, PhD Dr. Leitch is Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Dodd is Emeritus Professor of Radiology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Costanza is Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. Dr. Linver is Director of Mammography at X-Ray Associates of New Mexico and Clinical Associate Professor of Radiology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dr. Pressman is Clinical Professor of Surgery at Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York, New York. Dr. McGinnis is Medical Director of the Eberhart Cancer Center at DeKalb Medical Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Smith is Senior Director for Cancer Detection and Treatment for the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, Georgia.