Diagnostic service effectiveness during the first year of breast cancer screening in the region of Lower Silesia

Background. The Polish Government and the National Health Fund introduced population-based breast cancer screening in 2007 aimed to reduce breast cancer mortality. Objectives. To evaluate the diagnostic quality of the program during its initial year in the region of Lower Silesia. Material and Methods. This nation-wide program targets women aged 50-69, excluding females undergoing treatment or being followed up due to breast cancer. Biennial two-view screen-film mammography is used as the standard screening test. A significant reduction in breast cancer mortality requires measurement of long-term screening. Some early performance indicators are therefore widely used and accepted in monitoring the effectiveness of a screening program. These parameters were calculated and compared with those recommended by the European Union. Results. In 2007, 79,143 women were screened in the region of Lower Silesia. Only 0.26% of them were re-examined for technical reasons. The recall for reassessment, short-term recall, and invasive examination rates were 6.85, 0.91, and 0.39%, respectively. Pathologically confirmed breast cancer was found in 460 women, giving a detection rate 5.8/1000. The ratio of cancer detection rate to expected incidence was 3.54. There were only 17 (3.7%) ductal carcinoma in situ found among all the cancers. Three hundred twenty-five cancers were histologically verified by open biopsy, giving a non-operative biopsy rate for malignancy as low as 29%. Conclusions. The effectiveness of the diagnostic service for cancer detection during the initial phase of the breast cancer screening program corresponds to the parameters specified by the European guidelines for quality assessment of initial screening examinations. The main disadvantage is the rate of minimal-invasive biopsy for malignancy, one third of that recommended. Another challenge is the low incidence of DCIS. This needs to be carefully evaluated in the future together with the time interval and false-negative cancers. Acceptable but not ideal rates of recall for reassessment and short-term recall should be decreased in the coming years and kept at the lowest possible levels thereafter. (authors)