ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, March 11, 1997                TAG: 9703110078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

PANEL RECOMMENDS YEARLY MAMMOGRAMS START AT 40 DECISION MAY HELP RESOLVE DEBATE

The proposal will be voted on by the American Cancer Society board at its March 19-22 meeting.

Adding to the debate over how early and often women should be screened for breast cancer, an American Cancer Society panel of experts is recommending annual mammograms beginning at age 40, rather than 50.

The recommendation will be voted on by the cancer society's board at its March 19-22 meeting.

Currently, the society recommends that women ages 40 to 49 get mammograms every year or two. But a panel of experts that met in Chicago over the weekend said annual mammograms for women in their 40s could save more lives.

Scientists agree that annual mammograms starting at age 50 significantly cut the breast cancer death rate. And they agree that women in their 30s should get regular mammograms only if they have a strong family history of breast cancer.

But the question of whether women ages 40 through 49 need regular mammograms is so difficult that in January, a panel of experts convened by the National Cancer Institute could not reach a recommendation. The NCI panel declared women should decide for themselves whether to have mammograms in their 40s.

That advice produced an outcry. The Senate unanimously urged women to get mammograms in their 40s.

``To have different guidelines drives women crazy,'' American Cancer Society spokeswoman Joann Schellenbach said.

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