The problem is that screening tests have to be started ten years earlier

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According to an American panel of experts breast cancer screening should start at age 40 instead of age 50 in women, as more and more women in their forties are diagnosed breast cancer it says Euronews.

An independent team of experts funded by the US government suggested that women should go for breast cancer screening every second year from the age of 40. According to data from the National Cancer Institute, the rate of breast cancer among women in their forties has increased by two percent every year since 2015, and with screening breast cancer discovered at an early stage can be easily cured.

The situation is similar in Hungary, the number of people under the age of 50 diagnosed with breast cancer has increased dramatically. Between 2011 and 2019, 30 percent more women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Currently, Hungarian decision-makers have a package of proposals on their table, which includes a new protocol for mammography screenings, we wrote more about this here.

In Hungary, women between the ages of 45 and 65 are invited once every two years by means of a personal letter addressed to their name to undergo a mammographic screening test financed by the National Health Insurance Fund (NEAK).

According to the new proposal, NEAK-funded screening would be available from the age of 40.

According to 2021 data from Eurostat Denmark, Finland and Sweden was in first place in the field of breast cancer screening among the member states of the European Union (EU), where 80-83 percent of women between the ages of 50 and 69 participated in a mammography examination in the last two years. Malta and Slovenia followed closely behind with 77.8 percent and 77.2 percent, respectively. in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovakia, in Hungary and in Latvia the proportion of women participating in breast cancer screening was the lowest: it ranged from 20.6 percent to 30.8 percent.

Per 100,000 inhabitants mammogram availability of devices in Greece and Cyprus had the highest, with 7.1 and 5.9 devices, respectively. Then Belgium, Italy and Croatia are in the ranking with 3.3 and 3.6 machines. Germany, France, Romania and Poland had the lowest number of mammography devices: 0.5 and 1.1 devices per 100,000 inhabitants, it says Eurostat.