German coalition launches breast cancer screening:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The German Social Democratic and Green parties are to put forward a joint proposal to assure quality maintenance within a future national mammography screening programme. Breast cancer experts are concerned that, while incidence of the disease fell in both the US and the UK during the 1990s, Germany registered a slight rise. At present, statutory health insurance funds will only reimburse mammography screening if there is a strong indication that the patient has contracted breast cancer. The proposal, which is due to be processed next week, will seek to address concerns that deaths from breast cancer of women between the ages of 50-70 could be reduced by 20-30% were a routine population screening programme to be introduced.