American Cancer Society Increases Recommended Age for Mammograms to 45

The American Cancer Society has eased it recommendations regarding when women should start getting annual mammograms.

According to the new guidelines, women with an average risk of developing breast cancer should start getting yearly mammograms at the age of 45 instead of 40.

The guidelines added that women over the age of 55 could get mammograms every other year. This change falls in line with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's guidelines that recommend women with average risk to start getting biennial breast cancer screenings once they turn 50. The American Cancer Society and other groups believed, however, that telling women to wait until they turned 50 to start mammograms could be risky.

The task force, which is made up of a panel of experts, published those guidelines in 2009. An updated version is expected to include that some women in their 40s would benefit from getting early screenings. The guidelines are expected to recommend that women discuss the pros and cons of early breast cancer screenings with their doctors.

"There is substantial agreement now," said Dr. Albert Siu, who heads the task force, reported by the Los Angeles Times. "Both of these guidelines indicate that the mammogram is a good test, although it's not perfect."

The task force has stated that they will be looking into the American Cancer Society's guidelines and the evidence used when they are finalizing their updated set of guidelines.

"You see this moving from a one-size-fits-all approach to something that's more personalized and more individualized, which is where medicine is going," said Dr. Kevin Oeffinger, a primary care doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Dr. Oeffinger chaired the panel that worked on the new American Cancer Society guidelines.

The American Cancer Society guidelines also recommend that women continue getting mammograms as long as they are healthy.

The guidelines were published in JAMA.