THE NATIONAL BREAST SCREENING SERVICE - IS IT ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT

Currently the UK national breast screening programme only offers routi ne screening to women aged between 50 and 64. Whilst there are good cl inical and economic reasons for not screening younger women, there is no compelling argument for not extending routine screening to older wo men. In this paper, we show that by diverting screening resources to o lder women, where cancer is more prevalent, more lives and life-years can be saved for no extra cost. Therefore, the current breast screenin g programme may be inefficient, and offering screening to older women should be given serious consideration.