Original scientific paper
A preliminary report of the Osijek-Baranja County, Croatia, on implementation of the national program for breast cancer screening
Senka Samardžić
; Department of Social Medicine, Institute of Public Health for the Osijek-Baranja County, Osijek, Croatia
Ljiljana Majnarić
; Medical Centre Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Tibor Santo
; Department of Social Medicine, Institute of Public Health for the Osijek-Baranja County, Osijek, Croatia
Nikola Kraljik
; Department of Social Medicine, Institute of Public Health for the Osijek-Baranja County, Osijek, Croatia
Rudika Gmajnić
; Medical Centre Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Zdravko Ebling
; Medical Centre Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Barbara Ebling
; Clinical Hospital Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
The incidence of breast cancer is rising among women in many European countries, affecting up to 1 in 16 women. In 2005 in Croatia, 2,303 women were affected by breast carcinoma with the incidence of 100.1/100,000. In 2006, 830 women, or 36.1/100,000 women died from breast carcinoma. In October 2006, a mammography screening program was launched as the first national-based cancer screening program in Croatia. In our paper, we described the first results of the screening program in the Osijek-Baranja County. The target population was women aged 50-69, about 41,678 women in the Osijek-Baranja County, with a two-year screening interval. All data collected until December 2007 were represented in contingency tables. Until December 2007, nearly 31,638 women were invited, and the participation rate was 51.0%. Based on the number of the reports to the County Public Health Institute, a total of 14,126 women underwent mammography, considering the fact that the reading and analysis of the mammograms takes about 20 days. For women born in 1937, 1954 and 1955, for whom the analysis is completed, the responding rate reaches 60.7%. The reason for non-responding to the screening is known for only 24.1% of all invited women. The most common reason was an incorrect address – 13.7%, and 4.6% of the invited women did not want to undergo screening. There were 204 cases (or 1.47%) of a suspected cancer (classified as BI-RADS 4 and 5), referred to prompt further diagnostics. Fifty-eight new cancer cases were diagnosed until 23 January 2008. Women of an older age responded less compared to women of a younger age. The main difficulty with inviting was a wrong address, which resulted in 2,129 women not responding to the invitation. The knowledge about benefits of all screening programs requires to be strengthened. For better results of the National Program, important are companionships of different sectors and communities (for example NGO).
Keywords
breast cancer; mammography; National Program
Hrčak ID:
280362
URI
Publication date:
22.11.2007.
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