All Articles on Screening

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  Wall Street Journal shines light on our patient researchers

  As patients assume their groundbreaking role in breast cancer research at KPWHRI, the national press takes notice.
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  Getting to Goldilocks: ‘Just right’ breast screening

  For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Dr. Diana Buist tells how Kaiser Permanente research helps women and their doctors decide if, when, and how to screen.
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  How to prevent disparities in colon cancer screening

  Group Health, Kaiser Permanente researchers in JAMA Internal Medicine
• ‘Glad you’re listening’: SIMBA study brings patients’ voices to the fore

  For the three million women in the United States who’ve survived breast cancer, difficult health care choices come with the territory. But even after successful treatment, an important question lingers: Should they consider magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in addition to mammography for ongoing breast cancer screening, or “surveillance”?
• High-risk women get breast MRI—but room remains for improvement

  A large national study in JAMA Internal Medicine has found that the rate of women receiving breast MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) nearly tripled from 2005 to 2009: from four to 11 exams per 1,000 women.
• Colon cancer screening doubles with new e-health record use

  Researchers used electronic health records to identify Group Health patients who weren’t screened regularly for cancer of the colon and rectum—and to encourage them to be screened. This centralized, automated approach doubled these patients’ rates of on-time screening—and saved health costs—over two years. The March 5 Annals of Internal Medicine published the randomized controlled trial.
• Biennial and yearly mammograms give older women same benefit

  Among older women, getting a mammogram every two years was just as beneficial as getting a mammogram annually, and led to significantly fewer false-positive results, according to a Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) study including patients and researchers from Group Health. The national study of more than 140,000 women between ages 66 and 89 is in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.