There has been a great deal of questions regarding the new government recommendations about when women should start getting mammograms. Essentially, the new guidelines say that women without any risk factors don’t need to have a mammogram until age 50. The previous recommendation was to start screening at age 40.
Most of us are still recommending beginning at age 40 but if a patient has no risk factors that every other year is acceptable until age 50 and then yearly after that. This is a reasonable compromise. The problem with the new recommendation is determining what risk factors are significant and how to assess each risk factor. For now, I am going to recommend screening at age 40.
