Mammograms get boost for women over 40.

Scientists continue to debate whether women in their forties should get mammogram screenings for breast cancer. Some argue that regular tests aren't cost-effective, since breast cancer usually strikes later in life. Others say mammograms catch cancer early. A study in the Dec. 1, 1997 Cancer bolsters the case for more screenings. It indicates that mammograms given to women in their forties save lives.

In Gothenburg, Sweden, 11,724 women in that age group were selected at random to get mammograms every 18 months, starting in the mid-1980s. Another 14,217 women of the same age were identified at the time but weren't offered mammograms until the women in the first group had received their fifth screening--at least 6 years into the trial.

Through 1994, doctors had diagnosed breast cancer in 144 of the women getting regular screenings and in 195 of the controls--percentages that didn't diverge markedly.

Death rates from breast cancer differed sharply, however. Of the women getting regular mammograms, 18 died of breast cancer, whereas 40 of the controls died of the disease. Adjusted for group size, the mortality of the mammogram group was 55 percent of the controls' mortality.

Another study released last year, by researchers in Malmo, Sweden, found that the mortality rate among women receiving mammograms was only two-thirds that of an unscreened control group. In that study, women began screenings at age 45.

Although some of the breast cancers in the Gothenburg study were defected in women age 50 or over, 69 percent were not, which "proves screening works in women in their forties," says Stephen A. Feig, a radiologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. He notes that the American Cancer Society recommends that women in their forties get mammograms annually.