Breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women – nearly 1 in 3 (30%) of all cancers in women occur in the breast.
The NHS Breast Screening Programme provides free breast screening every three years for all women in the UK aged 50 and over. Around one-and-a-half million women are now screened in the UK each year. Women aged between 50 and 64 are routinely invited for breast screening every three years, with plans to extend this to women up to and including the age of 70.
Currently, in the UK, women under 50 are not offered routine screening. Mammograms seem not to be as effective in pre-menopausal women possibly because the density of the breast tissue makes it more difficult to detect problems and also because the incidence of breast cancer is lower.