New guidelines recommend starting mammograms at age 40 for breast cancer screenings.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has issued new draft guidelines recommending that breast cancer screenings should start at age 40, a decade earlier than previously recommended. The panel suggests that women at average risk should have mammograms every other year starting at age 40. The change is based on new and more inclusive science about breast cancer in people younger than 50. The panel hopes the change could result in 19% more lives saved. The statement also addressed health disparities, noting that Black women are 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women.