{"id":7817,"date":"2015-09-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icesontario.wpengine.com\/news-releases\/regular-visits-to-primary-care-providers-improve-uptake-of-periodic-mammograms-particularly-as-women-age\/"},"modified":"2023-06-14T18:19:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T22:19:27","slug":"regular-visits-to-primary-care-providers-improve-uptake-of-periodic-mammograms-particularly-as-women-age","status":"publish","type":"news_release","link":"https:\/\/www.ices.on.ca\/fr\/news-releases\/regular-visits-to-primary-care-providers-improve-uptake-of-periodic-mammograms-particularly-as-women-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Regular visits to primary care providers improve uptake of periodic mammograms, particularly as women age"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regular visits to primary care providers play an important role in a women’s uptake of periodic mammograms, and this association increases as women get older, says a new Ontario study from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Canadian cancer screening guidelines for average-risk women recommend that all women 50 to 74 years of age be screened for breast cancer with mammography every 2 to 3 years. Despite these guidelines and the introduction of the Ontario Breast Screening Program in the early 1990s (providing women access to free breast screening without a doctor’s referral), many women who are eligible still do not get screened. <\/p>\n

“Our study determined that women over the age of 65 who have not visited their primary care provider within a two-year period were less than half as likely to have received periodic mammograms,“ says study senior author Dr. Lawrence Paszat<\/a>, a senior scientist at ICES and head of the Preventive Oncology Program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. “Our concern is that without regular screening these women may be at increased risk for a delayed breast cancer diagnosis, which can diminish their treatment options and outcomes.”<\/p>\n

Published this month in the Journal of Medical Screening<\/em>, this study is the first to examine the role of visits to primary care providers on the rate of periodic mammograms as women age.<\/p>\n

The researchers reviewed the healthcare records of nearly 2.4 million Ontario women who were age 50 to 79 at any point between 2001 and 2010. Based on OHIP billing records, they determined whether or not a woman had visited a primary care provider within the previous two years. They further tracked the number and severity of other diagnoses, as well as the women’s ages and the income ranking of their postal code areas. <\/p>\n

The study’s findings include: <\/p>\n