Year: 2009
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: To the Editor:Early breast cancer detection through mammography screening has contributed to improved survival rates (1).Only 61.5% of American women over age 40 obtained a mammogram in 2001, as recommended by the American Cancer Society (2).Reasons for not adhering to mammography screening recommendations include lack of physician recommendation, cultural preferences, and socioeconomic barriers (3).Geographic access to mammography facility has also been evaluated in relationship to screening rates and to disease stage at diagnosis with inconsistent results (4-7).Prior studies have focused on geographic access and mammography rates or geographic access on a county level and tumor stage at diagnosis.We examined the relationship of an easily understandable geographic access measure, namely driving distance, with the ultimate goal of breast cancer screening, namely early detection, in a statewide population.For our analysis, all incident, primary, female breast cancer cases diagnosed in Virginia in 2000-01 were collected from the Virginia Cancer Registry (VCR).Exclusion criteria included age at diagnosis younger than 40 since mammography screening recommendations do not apply, missing tumor size or stage data, and tumor size greater than 10 cm.Tumor size categories were based on AJCC definitions.Patient age at diagnosis, race, and home address as latitude ⁄ longitude were obtained from VCR. Race was coded as white people, black people, or other.Socioeconomic status (SES) was approximated using per capita income (PCI) data from the 2000 US Census (8), categorized as <$15K, $15-<20K, $20-<25K, $25-35K, and >$35K.Average PCI by census block group was linked to each patient.Using average SES indicators of a local area to represent individual SES has been supported in previous studies (9,10).The
Source: The Breast Journal
Authors: Anneke T. Schroen, Megan E. Lohr
Institutions: Plastic Surgery Hospital, University of Virginia
Language: English
Subfield: Oncology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2034019396