Absolute numbers of lives saved and overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening, from a randomized trial and from the Breast Screening Programme in England.

OBJECTIVES

To estimate the absolute numbers of breast cancer deaths prevented and the absolute numbers of tumours overdiagnosed in mammographic screening for breast cancer at ages 50-69 years.

SETTING

The Swedish Two-County randomized trial of mammographic screening for breast cancer, and the UK Breast Screening Programme in England, ages 50-69 years.

METHODS

We estimated the absolute numbers of deaths avoided and additional cases diagnosed in the study group (active study population) of the Swedish Two-County Trial, by comparison with the control group (passive study population). We estimated the same quantities for the mortality and incidence rates in England (1974-2004 and 1974-2003, respectively). We used Poisson regression for statistical inference.

RESULTS

A substantial and significant reduction in breast cancer mortality was associated with screening in both the Two-County Trial (P < 0.001) and the screening programme in England (P < 0.001). The absolute benefits were estimated as 8.8 and 5.7 breast cancer deaths prevented per 1000 women screened for 20 years starting at age 50 from the Two-County Trial and screening programme in England, respectively. The corresponding estimated numbers of cases overdiagnosed per 1000 women screened for 20 years were, respectively, 4.3 and 2.3 per 1000.

CONCLUSIONS

The benefit of mammographic screening in terms of lives saved is greater in absolute terms than the harm in terms of overdiagnosis. Between 2 and 2.5 lives are saved for every overdiagnosed case.