The Importance of Individual Screening for Breast Cancer: MN505 Report

This report focuses on the importance of individual screening for breast cancer, emphasizing its significance as a common carcinoma and leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. The report explores the epidemiology of breast cancer, highlighting risk factors and variations in prevalence and mortality across different regions. It discusses evidence-based screening methods, including mammography, and analyzes the guidelines recommended by the USPSTF, such as biennial mammography for women aged 50 to 74. The report also examines the benefits and drawbacks of screening, considering factors like age, risk levels, and the potential for false-positive results. The conclusion underscores the importance of early diagnosis and treatment for optimizing outcomes, supported by references to relevant research and guidelines.

Running Head: IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUAL SCREENING OF BREAST CANCER
IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUAL SCREENING OF BREAST CANCER
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
Epidemiology for Master Prepared Nursing practice helps bachelor's degree-level clinical
nursing students to understand essential epidemiological principles while learning and
incorporating practical statistical skills. Focusing on the value of disease awareness and
community-centric relocation, it helps the students to extend their knowledge and understanding
while improving realistic implementation capabilities and promoting research interests.
Screening corresponds to the need for standard tests throughout an asymptomatic community to
monitor people with risk factors or early stages of illness or carcinoma but with no symptoms or
very insignificant set symptoms as yet. The paper below projects the importance of screening
individuals for breast cancer (Winters et al, 2017). The paper demonstrates that the application of
the knowledge of epidemiology and its contribution to the standards for therapeutic screening is
relevant in many health fields: institutional, instructional and nursing practice. Lastly, the paper
discusses the guideline’s support by critically analyzing the screening method for diagnosing
individuals for breast cancer.
Discussion:
Epidemiological characteristics of Breast Cancer:
Breast cancer is considered one of the most commonly diagnosed carcinomas in women,
and one of their most serious causes of death that have been reported in the United Kingdom.
Breast cancer, is a multi factorial disorder which leads to its incidence by several causes. Even
though the cancer exists globally, the prevalence of occurrence, longevity and mortality, varies
considerably across different regions of the world, and that could be dependent on many factors

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such as diet, demographic density, climate and genetic factors. Increase in the risk factors also
resulted in an increase in breast cancer incidences with each passing day. Even though with
regular screening women can lessen the burden of breast cancer. The risks of undergoing regular
screening procedure might include side effects as well as face the consequences of over-
diagnosis and a hike in the budget of screening costs. An additional 268,600 recently diagnosed
people with invasive cancer (48,100 instances of in situ ductal carcinoma[ DCIS])
were accounted for roughly in 2019 (Ghoncheh et al, 2016). Based on the data sources, 2%-30%
of all new cases of cancer in women were found to be registered. For people, the projection for
2019 is 2,670 new breast cancer cases, reflecting < 1 per cent of all current male cancer cases.
The relative risk of dying from breast cancer can be estimated to about 2.6%. Around 42,000
people suffer from breast cancer per year, rendering it the second-leading issue of women's
cancer mortality after lung cancer. Since the 1950s, breast cancer incidence has grown in most
low-risk nations, as well as high-risk western societies. Several of the rising incidence increases
in populations at elevated risk may be attributed in part to the usage of breast cancer screening.
That seems to be the case in Denmark, as well as England and Wales. Nevertheless, a significant
increase in the prevalence of breast cancer occurred in Norway between 1983 and 1993, despite
the low use of mammographic screening. The proven breast cancer risk factors include
the dietary status, age, weight and height of an individual. These factors are found to
be influenced by drastic changes in lifestyle in such regions induced by increasing
affluence, growing economies, and decreases in the proportion of women in the urban workforce.
These developments further lead to a shift of Western countries ' risk-factor profile.

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Evidence based study on Breast Cancer screening method:
(Siu, 2016) reviews in his paper the efficacy of mammograms in minimizing breast
cancer — specifically helping in reducing the factors that are responsible for death, or
the prevalence of advanced stages of breast cancer and prevalence of treatment-related
morbidity. Moreover, the paper was also observed to further check performance characteristics
of optical breast tomosynthesis (Lee et al, 2015) as a main screening technique. Lastly, the paper
discusses the breast cancer screening risks and adjunctive screening of women with elevated
breast density (Welch et al, 2016). In accordance to the USPTF, the paper projected that the
report provided sufficient proof that with the mammography (Weedon-Fekjær, Romundstad &
Vatten, 2014) screening decreases mortality from breast cancer in women aged 40 to 74. The rate
of deaths from breast cancer decreases with age primarily for women aged between 40 and 49
years earning the least and women aged between 60 and 69 years benefit the most and the worst.
Gender is the biggest risk factor for breast cancer, and the decreased gain found with gender is at
least partly due to the increased chance.
Breast Cancer Screening:
The USPSTF (Wernli et al, 2017) suggests biennial mammography screening for women
whose age ranges from 50 to 74. Women, who prioritize the significant benefit more than the
potential dangers, may select between 40 and 49 years of age to begin biennial screening. The
decision to continue screening mammography in women before age 50 ought to be an arbitrary
decision. For women at high risk of breast cancer, the majority of mammography findings are
obtained from biennial examinations between 50 and 74 years of age. Over all demographic
groups, women aged 60 to 69 were most likely to avoid death from breast cancer through
checking for mammograms. The relationship of benefits and drawbacks would probably improve

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when women move from early to late 40s. Although mammography screening in women
between the ages of 40 and 49 may mitigate the possibility of death from breast cancer, the
number of deaths averted is lower than that in older women and the number of fallacious-
positive results and unnecessary biopsies is higher. Advancing age has become the most
important contributing factor for breast cancer among most cases, but epidemiological evidence
from the BCSC show that maintaining a first-degree history with breast cancer is associated with
an almost2-fold increased incidence with breast cancer among women aged 40 to 49. The test
periods ranged from 12 to 33 months (Trentham-Dietz et al, 2016) in the randomized trials that
confirmed mammography's efficacy in minimizing breast cancer mortality among women aged
40 to 74 years old.
Conclusion:
The paper concludes on the fact that breast cancer is the most common
carcinomas occurring amongst women and the most common cause of death in women from
cancer. The survey results, available show that prevalence and fatalities has decreased in high-
resource countries while incidences and mortality have risen in low-resource countries. This
trend is possibly due to the different patterns of the risk factors and disparities in access to early
diagnosis and care of breast cancer. A genetic variation in the tumor suppressor genes BRCA 1
and BRCA 2 was significantly correlated with breast and ovarian cancer growth by age 70. The
rate of survival depends on both phase and subtype of the molecules. Diagnosis and treatment on
early basis is an important strategy for optimizing results, because there are few signs and
symptoms that appear later, which might further lead to fatal results. The article concludes with

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the analysis of the effective screening method recommended by USPSTF to screen for breast
cancer amongst the population.

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Reference:
Ghoncheh, M., Pournamdar, Z., & Salehiniya, H. (2016). Incidence and mortality and
epidemiology of breast cancer in the world. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer
Prevention, 17(S3), 43-46.
Lee, C. I., Cevik, M., Alagoz, O., Sprague, B. L., Tosteson, A. N., Miglioretti, D. L., ... &
Lehman, C. D. (2015). Comparative effectiveness of combined digital mammography
and tomosynthesis screening for women with dense breasts. Radiology, 274(3), 772-780.
Siu, A. L. (2016). Screening for breast cancer: US Preventive Services Task Force
recommendation statement. Annals of internal medicine, 164(4), 279-296.
Trentham-Dietz, A., Kerlikowske, K., Stout, N. K., Miglioretti, D. L., Schechter, C. B., Ergun,
M. A., ... & Near, A. M. (2016). Tailoring breast cancer screening intervals by breast
density and risk for women aged 50 years or older: collaborative modeling of screening
outcomes. Annals of internal medicine, 165(10), 700-712.
Weedon-Fekjær, H., Romundstad, P. R., & Vatten, L. J. (2014). Modern mammography
screening and breast cancer mortality: population study. Bmj, 348, g3701.
Welch, H. G., Prorok, P. C., O’Malley, A. J., & Kramer, B. S. (2016). Breast-cancer tumor size,
overdiagnosis, and mammography screening effectiveness. New England Journal of
Medicine, 375(15), 1438-1447.
Wernli, K. J., Arao, R. F., Hubbard, R. A., Sprague, B. L., Alford-Teaster, J., Haas, J. S., ... &
Onega, T. (2017). Change in breast cancer screening intervals since the 2009 USPSTF
guideline. Journal of Women's Health, 26(8), 820-827.

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Winters, S., Martin, C., Murphy, D., & Shokar, N. K. (2017). Breast cancer epidemiology,
prevention, and screening. In Progress in molecular biology and translational
science (Vol. 151, pp. 1-32). Academic Press.