Mammographic Screening and Breast Cancer Mortality: A Case-Control Study and Meta-analysis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Observational studies are necessary to assess the impact of population screening on breast cancer mortality. While some ecological studies have notably found little or no association, case-control studies consistently show strong inverse associations, but they are sometimes ignored, perhaps due to theoretical biases arising from the study design. We conducted a case-control study of breast cancer deaths in Western Australia to evaluate the effect of participation in the BreastScreen Australia program, paying particular attention to potential sources of bias, and undertook an updated meta-analysis of case-control studies. METHODS: Our study included 427 cases (women who died from ..