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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| The importance of age in screening for cancer | | Author(s) | M R Law, J K Morris, N J Wald |
| Journal title | Journal of Medical Screening, vol 6, 1999 |
| Pages | pp 16-20 |
| Keywords | Cancer ; Screening ; Age groups [elderly] ; Life expectancy tables. |
| Annotation | The "life years lost" concept is examined as a simple means of determining the value of different screening tests conducted over various age ranges. Six cancers are considered: breast, cervix, colorectal (colon and rectum), ovary, prostate, and melanoma. The number of years of life lost per 10,000 persons at each year of age was calculated as the product of the death rate and the average life expectancy (on 1990 death rates) at that age. For each cancer, the number of years of life lost to age 80, plotted against age at death, showed a rise followed by a fall. The peak indicates the age at which deaths from cancer result in most years of life lost. Special screening tests, such as mammography for breast cancer, will be most effective in saving life shortly before that age. The peak (as a 5-year age span) occurs at age 55-59 for breast cancer, 70-74 for prostate cancer, 65-69 for colorectal cancer, 55-59 for ovarian cancer, 50-54 for cervical cancer, and 45-50 for melanoma. Extending cervical screening to age 69 would save more years of life, given that more years of life are lost for women age 70-74 than under 30. Extending breast cancer screening to age 74 would be more effective than cervical screening at any age. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000105005 A |
| Classmark | CK: 3V: BB: S7 * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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