The National Task Force recently updated Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines.

Supporting screening earlier will enable more women to be diagnosed earlier before their cancers can present with symptoms

and help us prevent deaths from cancer.

It's Monday, May 20th, and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm Sci-Fi producer Shishonabuxbaum.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently updated its guidelines once again for

breast cancer screening.

Women and people assigned female at birth should begin getting mammograms at age 40

and continue every other year until age 74. Now the previous guidelines

recommended beginning screening at age 50. But why have the guidelines changed and

how are these decisions being made in the first place. Here's Ira Fleto with more.

Joining me now to answer these questions is my guest Dr. Janie Lee,

Director of Breast Imaging at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and at the

University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.

Dr. Lee, welcome to Science Friday.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Nice to have you.

Let's start with an overview of the changes to the breast cancer

screening guidelines please. Why did the task force come to the decision to

lower the screening age? The United States Preventive Services Task Force, also known as the USPSTF, has a pretty rigorous

process for evaluating evidence to help them update their guidelines.

And they do this periodically.

As you know, the last guidelines were issued in 2016.

...