Although there has been some question about the potential clinical benefits and harms of mammography as a routine screening for breast cancer for women in their 40s, a number of private insurance companies will support the cost. In a research letter published on March 23 in JAMA Internal Medicine, a group of researchers considered the cost of the procedure for more than 2.25 million insured women in this age group in 2017.
We found that although fewer than half of the women aged 40 through 49 years who had private insurance and were eligible received annual breast cancer screening in 2017, the estimated annual national cost was $2.13 billion. These costs are borne despite the unclear tradeoff between clinical benefits and risks of screening women aged 40 through 49 years.
Read the letter at JAMA Internal Medicine.
