Health
Breast cancer mammogram screenings should start at age 40 instead of 50, says health task force
Women should get mammograms every other year starting at age 40, according to updated recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).
This is a significant change from previous guidelines, which said women should begin biennial mammograms at age 50, but could opt to begin as young as 40.
The task force also noted that there is not sufficient evidence to “assess the balance of benefits and harms” of additional breast cancer screenings — including ultrasounds and MRIs — for women with dense breast tissue who have had an otherwise negative screening mammogram.
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The USPSTF previously released these recommendations in draft form in May 2023.
Tuesday’s announcement makes the guidance official.
Women should get mammograms every other year starting at age 40, according to updated recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. (iStock)
Other medical groups have already been recommending mammograms starting at younger ages.
The American College of Radiology recommends starting annual screenings at age 40 for women of average risk, with earlier screenings for high-risk patients.
The American Cancer Society states that women between 40 and 44 have the option to get annual mammograms, and officially recommends that women between 45 and 54 get them every year.
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The updated guidance is in response to cancer rates rising among young people and breast cancer rates rising in particular, experts say.
Between 1990 and 2019, cancer rates among people 50 and younger have risen by 79%, according to research published in BMJ Oncology.
The previous guidance stated women should begin biennial mammograms at age 50, but could opt to begin as young as 40. (iStock)
Cancer rates for people under 50 are projected to rise by 31% by the year 2030, data shows.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, according to the American Cancer Society, with rates rising 2% each year since 2015.
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One in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, and each woman has a one in 40 chance of dying from the disease.
The earlier screening recommendation could save 19% more lives, the USPSTS stated.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, according to the American Cancer Society. (iStock)
Reactions to the recommendation
Dr. Michelle Specht, a breast surgeon and co-director of the Avon Comprehensive Breast Evaluation Center at Mass General Cancer Center, said she is “thrilled” that the USPSTF has finalized its recommendations for earlier screenings.
“We have seen a rise in the incidence of breast cancer in women in their 40s over the last eight years and know that starting mammography at 40 will allow us to detect cancers at a smaller size and earlier stage,” she told Fox News Digital.
“Early detection not only leads to improved survival, but an improved quality of life. As a surgeon, I am able to do smaller surgeries — and my medical oncology colleagues can deescalate treatment — when cancers are detected early.”
One in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, and each woman has a one in 40 chance of dying from the disease. (iStock)
Dr. Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society in Virginia, said in a statement the decision is a “critical change concerning women’s health and the fight against breast cancer,” and that it sends “a strong message to referring physicians and women that breast cancer screening should begin earlier than age 50.”
“Mammography screening is the cornerstone of our strategy to find this potentially deadly disease early, when it’s easier to treat successfully,” she said in the statement.
“Mammography screening is the cornerstone of our strategy to find this potentially deadly disease early, when it’s easier to treat successfully,” said the CEO of the American Cancer Society. (iStock)
“We are encouraged that among the reasons for the USPSTF changes in their breast cancer screening recommendations include eliminating health disparities, especially among Black women, who are 40% more likely to die of breast cancer compared with White women and have a higher risk of aggressive breast cancers at all ages,” Knudsen added.
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Dr. Nancy Chan, a medical oncologist at NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, shared her reaction to the updated guidelines.
“No significant difference was found in different screening methods, i.e., DBT (digital breast tomosynthesis) versus digital mammogram,” she told Fox News Digital.
“In patients with dense breast tissue, the addition of MRI may reduce cancer risk and false positive recalls.”
If a woman has a family history of breast cancer, she should meet with her doctor to have a breast cancer risk analysis performed, a doctor said. (iStock)
In clinical practice, Chan said the majority of patients undergo annual screenings with mammograms, instead of once every two years.
“Practically, in the urban setting, most patients are already and will continue to have screening with mammogram with tomosynthesis (3D mammography),” she added.
“Each patient must consider the best screening method for their individual cancer risk, such as breast density and family history.”
If a woman has a family history of breast cancer, she should meet with her doctor to have a breast cancer risk analysis performed, Specht said.
“This risk analysis will allow their physician to tailor breast cancer screening,” she noted.
“A woman at high risk of developing breast cancer may begin prior to 40 and may do both mammograms every year, [along with] supplemental screening, such as a breast MRI.”
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U.S. health officials are monitoring 16 additional people across the country for symptoms of hantavirus whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not previously mentioned, the agency said on Thursday.
The new people the C.D.C. reported were not on the cruise ship but were passengers on an April 25 flight to Johannesburg and exposed to someone known to have been infected, said Dr. David Fitter, who is leading the C.D.C.’s response to the outbreak.
The new total of those being monitored in the United States is 41, a significant increase over the 18 passengers from the Dutch cruise ship who were brought back to the United States on Monday. They are quarantining at special facilities in Omaha and Atlanta.
Seven other passengers from the cruise ship had disembarked on April 24 in St. Helena, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, returned to the United States on commercial flights and are being monitored by state health departments.
As of Thursday, there were no confirmed cases in the United States, Dr. Fitter said.
The infected passenger was a 69-year-old Dutch woman whose husband was the first person to die in the outbreak, on April 11. She was among those who disembarked from the ship on April 24. The next day, she flew from St. Helena to Johannesburg. She collapsed shortly after arrival and died on April 26. She was confirmed on May 4 to have had hantavirus.
C.D.C. officials would not give any other information about the 16 passengers, including where they had gone once they reached the United States.
It was not clear whether all Americans exposed to the virus are now back in the country, or whether there are additional people being monitored abroad.
“Our job is to ensure that we are monitoring and in contact with anybody that might have been on the flight this person had taken,” Dr. Fitter told reporters. The agency is “monitoring all Americans that potentially would have been exposed, whether in the U.S. or abroad, and we have been in contact with them,” he said.
In an interview on Sunday with CNN, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the C.D.C.’s acting director, said none of the seven passengers who returned to the United States earlier had symptoms at the time of their travel, so officials had not seen a need to alert the public or trace contacts.
For the moment, quarantine is essentially voluntary. Officials are encouraging those who were exposed to the virus to “stay at home and avoid being around people during their 42-day monitoring period,” Dr. Fitter said.
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Concerns about rising hantavirus cases has Americans reflecting on the coronavirus pandemic.
Although COVID-19 began with a foreign strain and spread rapidly around the world, experts say it’s not likely that hantavirus will behave the same way.
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact.
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Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel spoke with Fox News Digital about the similarities and differences between hantavirus and coronavirus, noting that there is “no comparison.”
“You could say the comparison ends at that they’re both single-stranded RNA viruses,” he said. “That’s a comparison, but [hantavirus] has been unchanged basically for decades.”
Dr. Marc Siegel says there’s “no comparison between these two viruses, other than that the single-stranded RNA viruses are both carried by animals.” (iStock)
Coronavirus was different because it began to mutate, which started to cause “all kinds of problems,” Siegel noted.
“We don’t know why it started to mutate, but this one doesn’t appear to have done that,” he said. “And every day that goes by seems to show that theory is correct – the genetics of it is the same.”
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“So, there’s no comparison between these two viruses, other than that the single-stranded RNA viruses are both carried by animals.”
Siegel added that COVID is an airborne virus, while hantavirus is mainly a secretion-borne virus, although it can be transmitted through dust and droppings in the air.
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact. (Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu)
“It’s not airborne … in terms of respiratory droplets hanging in the air,” he said. “It’s very difficult to transmit.”
While coronavirus “moved in the direction of humans in a significant way,” hantavirus has not, except for “very rare” human-to-human transmission, according to the doctor.
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There have been hantavirus cases in the U.S. for decades, although they are “very rare,” Siegel noted.
Certain factors of this disease spread are changing, including warming temperatures that are causing rodents to migrate north toward Buenos Aires, according to the doctor.
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The current outbreak stemming from the cruise ship did not help the cause, Siegel went on — but this spread doesn’t suggest that the virus has changed. Rather, it shows how close quarters on a ship are “very conducive” to spread, he said.
Passengers disembark from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, on May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
“Every day that goes by shows that … we’re not seeing a second generation of spread,” he reiterated.
The better comparison to make is between hantavirus and bird flu, which is a predominantly animal-based virus that “occasionally infects humans,” Siegel said.
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“There are billions of birds, and every year we talk about how it’s going to cause a pandemic, but it would have to mutate significantly,” he pointed out. “I feel that [hantavirus] would have to mutate significantly before it could go human to human in any significant way, because this is basically an animal virus … it’s very comfortable inside a rodent host.”
Siegel went on, “If you get this virus, you’re in trouble, but getting this virus is very difficult.”
A person visits a COVID testing site on a Manhattan street in New York City on Jan. 21, 2022. “Coronaviruses are airborne … this is not,” Dr. Siegel said. “And coronaviruses mutate a lot, and this does not.” (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Regarding fears that another global pandemic may be looming, Siegel said that just because one virus becomes widespread does not mean all viruses will.
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“Coronaviruses are airborne anyway. This is not. And coronaviruses mutate a lot, and this does not,” he said. “I’m much more concerned about flu than this. Flu can mutate all the time, and it’s already going human to human all over the place, and it’s airborne.”
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“Most infectious disease specialists are much more worried about flu than this, as deadly as this can be,” he added.
“We’re talking apples and oranges, and any comparison you make after that provokes fear.”
Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.
One morning just before Christmas, Michelle stood in a Thrifty-Wash, watching her seven loads of laundry tumble and spin. The machine at the Airbnb had broken and flooded the place. It had been a blessing, in a way — Michelle needed this time alone to think.
The night before, Los Angeles Unified School District officials had hosted a Zoom webinar for parents, in which they had promised to present all the evidence that campus was safe. Michelle had gone in with high hopes, maybe even optimism. Afterward, she called it “the Zoom from hell.”
The officials had opened the meeting by announcing that Pali High’s students would go back to campus at the end of January. Michelle had peered at the screen, squinting to make sense of their color-coded maps, charts and checklists as district officials and their third-party contractors used wonky terms to describe what sounded to Michelle like rudimentary decontamination methods: “visual inspections,” “glove tests,” “subjective evaluations for smoke odor” and the copious use of wet wipes.
The “Environmental Concerns” WhatsApp group began pinging with live commentary. “It’s like they’re all hanging out with my insurance company,” one mother typed. “Transparency my a$$,” wrote another.
During the question-and-answer portion, parents flooded the submission box: Why weren’t the porous ceiling tiles removed? (“We did our best to remove any surface contaminants that we could see visually,” one contractor replied.) Did they realize that lithium had been detected in smoke-damaged homes near the school? (“Lithium, we determined, was not going to be a high-priority metal for us,” another contractor explained.) And why hadn’t they tested for benzene, carbon tetrachloride or perchloroethylene — some of which had been found in other Palisades buildings after the fires?
Michelle had a hunch she knew the answer, but she assumed no official would ever admit it. Then the project manager for one of the contractors came on the screen.
“There are hundreds — literally — of different compounds that could be produced during a fire,” he said, “and there are analytical methods that can be very, very precise in sampling for those.” But the problem, he said, was that it “lacks specificity in what we can actually deal with … ”
Michelle had shaken her head in disbelief. The project manager interrupted himself. “That was the wrong way to put that,” he muttered.
This morning, Michelle had waked to some parents on the “Environmental Concerns” chat talking about putting their kids in virtual learning. Others were hoping to transfer. Michelle was fantasizing about protesting the return to campus, even dreaming up the picket signs: “Lead should only be in pencils,” or maybe, “Test on the school, not on the kids.”
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