New publication in BMC Breast Cancer Research

For around a year, the Cancer League of Eastern Switzerland and the School of Medicine have been collaborating on research regarding the effectiveness and future development possibilities of the "donna" mammography screening program. The first publication entitled "Breast cancer patients enrolled in the Swiss mammography screening program "donna" demonstrate prolonged survival" has now been published in the renowned journal BMC Breast Cancer Research. The open access publication can be found here: https://rdcu.be/dJa5z

The main findings:

• Breast cancer in the mammography screening program had a higher proportion of stage I carcinomas (46.5% vs. 33.0%; p < 0.01), a smaller (mean) tumor size (19.1 mm vs. 24.9 mm, p < 0.01) and fewer recurrences and metastases during the follow-up period (6.7% vs. 15.6%, p < 0.01).
• The unadjusted 10-year survival rates were 91.4% for women within the mammography screening program and 72.1% for women outside the program (p < 0.05). The difference in survival remained, but decreased when comparing women at the same tumor stage.
• After adjusting for lead-time, age, tumor size and Ki-67 proliferation index, there was still a 45% lower risk of death and a 53% lower risk of dying from breast cancer for women who participated in the program compared to women who did not.

We would like to thank the Krebsliga Ostschweiz and all the authors for their co-operation: David Kuklinski, Marcel Blum, Jonas Subelack, Alexander Geissler, Alena Eichenberger and Rudolf Morant.

Dr. David Kuklinski will be happy to answer any questions you may have:

Email: david.kuklinski@unisg.ch