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Breast Cancer Screening: At What Age Should You Start?

Women's Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley Blog Breast Cancer Screening: At What Age Should You Start?
Breast Cancer Screening: At What Age Should You Start?

When your odds for something are one in eight, it’s far from a long shot. Concerningly, these are the odds of women getting breast cancer — one in eight women develops this serious disease.

Each year in the United States, there are more than 380,000 breast cancer diagnoses and, sadly, more than 42,000 deaths. One of the most important steps you can take to stay one step ahead of breast cancer is through regular screening, since early intervention can greatly improve outcomes. 

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the US, Dr. Fernando Otero and the team at Women’s Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley thought it would be an excellent time to review screening guidelines. Here, we look at risk factors for breast cancer and when women should start screening.

Women of average risk for breast cancer

When we talk about risk factors for breast cancer, at the top of the list is simply being female — 99% of breast cancers are diagnosed in women.

If that’s really the only factor that puts you at risk (we’ll get into more risk factors next), we recommend starting screening at age 40. By screening, we’re largely referring to the mammogram, though ultrasound and MRI can also play screening roles. Whichever imaging we choose, the screening is non-invasive.

Moving forward, we recommend screening annually or every two years until age 45, then annually until age 55. After 55, women can choose to screen every other year or continue with annual screenings, assuming their risk factors haven’t changed.

Women at higher risk for breast cancer

Now let’s look at breast cancer screening recommendations for women who have higher risk factors for the disease, such as:

Some of these risk factors on their own aren’t enough to warrant earlier screening, but some are. For example, if you have a family or personal history of breast cancer and/or a genetic mutation, then we recommend starting screening at age 30.

If your only risk factor is not having breast cancer, we likely won’t recommend earlier screening. This factor really only becomes a risk if you add it to other factors and your overall risk rises to 20% or higher. 

To determine your overall risk, we use risk assessment tools that give us a number; if it’s 20% or higher, we will likely want you to screen earlier and annually, typically around age 30, as we mentioned.

To determine where you fall on the risk scale for breast cancer so that we can figure out the best screening schedule for your needs, please contact one of our offices in McAllen or Edinburg, Texas, to schedule an appointment.

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