Abstract
Since 1988 we have performed mass screening for breast cancer of women who attended hospitals in Kumamoto city for a variety of medical complaints. The mass screening of 87, 230 women was carried out between 1988 and 1997 and a second examination was required for 4, 104 women (4.7%). Breast cancer was found in 273 women (0.31%), which was a much higher rate than that seen in the mass screening program for Kumamoto prefecture (0.04%) that adopted a home visit system. Two hundred and twenty-two (81.3%) of 273 patients showed stage I or II disease according to the TNM classification scale. This proportion of early-stage disease cases was lower than that seen in the home visit program (90.4%), but was higher than that seen in patients with breast cancer in the Second Department of Surgery, Kumamoto University Hospital (74.3%).
These results suggest that mass screening for breast cancer of women attending Kumamoto city hospitals included patients with breast cancer who had come to the hospital after finding a lump during a self-examination.
