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I don't know a lot about breast cancer but I think you have asked the wrong question. Ultimately we all die, whether of breast cancer or something else. What is important is when you die. So I suggest you look for example at the influence of 10, 15 and 20 years of mammmagaphy on deaths over 10, 15 and 20, 25 years. Rod jackson > Dear List Members, The foundation Paracelsus Today in Switzerland is planning a utility analysis for mammography. The working method will include focus groups. For the focus groups, I now try to develop a hypothetical scenario for mammography which has to come close to the reality. I want to start with a group of say 10.000 women in the age of 50 and follow these women for the rest of their lifes, with or without mammography. Without mammography it can be expected that from these 10'000 women arround 470 women will die of breast cancer (mortality in Switzerland for breast cancer is arround 4.7%). The scenario for the case all these women do have regular mammographies, however is much more difficult to define. Although I know about the relative risk reduction of 0.3-0.25 for mammography in woman aged 50-70 ( which would mean that in stead of 470 in the end 329-353 will die of breast cancer), I cannot realy find numbers about how many women will have a positive screening result for the first screening and the following, and how many of these positive results are false positive, or how many cases will be missed. An other question is whether the mean age of the 10'000 women with mammography in the end will be higher then for those without mammography, and how much it will be higher. If you could give me some answers to my questions or tell me where to look for those answers I would be very grateful. With best regards, Dr. Klazien Matter-Walstra ****************************************************************** Work: Stiftung Paracelsus heute Ilgenweidtrasse 3 8840 Einsiedeln Tel: +41 (0)55 4188195, Fax: +41 (0)55 4188192 [log in to unmask] http://www.paracelsus-heute.ch/ Privat: Innerbergstrasse 55 3044 Innerberg Tel/Fax +41 (0)31 8292944 [log in to unmask] http://www.datacomm.ch/kmatter ****************************************************************** Dr Rodney Jackson MBChB PhD FAFPHM Associate Professor of Epidemiology Head of Department Dpt of Community Health, School of Medicine University of Auckland (Grafton Mews, 52-54 Grafton Rd) Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand Phone: +64 (0)9-3737599 ext 6343 Fax: +64 (0)9-3737494 e-mail: [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%