Screening--does it apply to breast cancer?

Developments in the field of mammography as an adjunct screening procedure conducted at the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York (HIP) are reviewed. As technology improves, new, non-invasive procedures for breast cancer screening may be proposed. Their test will pose the same problems encountered in the HIP trial: the definition of a control population receiving "conventional" screening; the rescreening of study and control women at specified intervals; the ability to maintain standardized diagnostic and treatment procedures for asymptomatic positives; long-term follow-up to determine whether a measurable reduction in breast cancer mortality in the study population has been achieved. These technical questions are capable of resolution and new or revised breast cancer screening modalities will be proposed, tested and possibly adopted in future years.