Nation-wide breast cancer screening in the Netherlands: Support for breast-cancer mortality reduction

The nationwide 2-yearly breastcancer screening programme in The Netherlands, for women aged 50-69, started around 1988, and was predicted to result eventually in a 16% reduction in breastcancer mortality in the total female population. We present the results of screening up to January 1, 1993, and compare these with the predicted results from the costeffectiveness analysis, on which basis this mortality reduction ha