[Limits of mammography screening: current controversies and perspectives]

In recent years overdiagnosis has been claimed to be a major disadvantage of breast cancer screening. Studies estimating overdiagnosis have shown substantial discrepancies due to differences in the underlying epidemiological methods. Valid estimates based on studies with sufficient follow-up have shown a proportion of overdiagnosis of much less than 10 % of cancer detected by screening. Special attention should be given to intraductal carcinoma in situ as it is a precursor lesion of invasive cancer but the progression potential is poorly understood and it is currently treated similarly to invasive cancer. This highlights the urgent need for better stratification of the disease in research and clinical practice allowing individual risk-adapted appropriate therapy. In this respect new molecular and genetic biomarkers seem to be the most promising approach for predicting disease behavior.Interval carcinoma represents a limitation of breast cancer screening and the impact on screening effectiveness is still unknown. Recent studies have emphasized that interval carcinoma is more aggressive than cancer detected by screening. Hence the occurrence and distribution of interval cancer should be recorded accurately by national cancer registries and evaluated by the screening services. Quality assurance measures may help to reduce the rate of false negative cases to a minimum. Further research focusing on subgroups of screening participants with a higher risk for interval cancer occurrence seems to be a prerequisite for developing future prevention strategies.