Abstract
In rural areas, general mass screening including internal medicine, breast cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer, cervical cancer, and colon cancer is very effective, because there are few specialists for each cancer, and all examinations can be done on the same day. In urban areas, individual breast screening is very effective, because there are many specialists and it can be done on any day according to individual circumstances. We performed general mass screening in six towns, where the cover rate of breast screening in 1996 was 30.5%. This was significantly higher than in other areas of Kyoto prefecture (6.8%). Personal expenditure for screening in a town was decreased by about one third by changing the method from separate mass screening to general mass screening. This was because the number of staff on one day tripled, whereas the number of days taken for the screening decreased to one fifth. From 1996, we performed individual breast screening in the Uji area, which includes two cities and one town. In this area, the cover rate of breast screening increased from 8.6% to 10.3%, and the breast cancer detection rate increased from 0.14% to 0.23%.
