POLL: Women and Breast Cancer: Many Fall Short in Screening

Oct. 7, 2007— -- Six in 10 women worry about their risk of contracting breast cancer -- but most skip the basic step of a monthly self-exam; many over 40 don't get annual mammograms and four in 10 haven't discussed the disease with their doctor.

Only four in 10 women in this ABC News poll say they've ever given themselves a self-exam; fewer -- 27 percent -- report having done a self-exam in the past month, as is suggested starting at age 20. Even among women over 40 with a family history of the disease -- two key risk factors -- just 38 percent do monthly self-exams.

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Forty-two percent of women also say they haven't had a conversation with a doctor about breast cancer; even among those over age 40, 38 percent haven't had such a discussion -- nor have three in 10 of those with a family history of the disease. Talking with a doctor can encourage awareness of risks and screening.

Examinations are occurring; 61 percent of all women over 40, and 70 percent of older women with a family history of the disease, say they've had a mammogram in the past year, as recommended by the American Cancer Society. But that leaves substantial numbers who have not had this screening done.

In the most recent data from the federal National Health Interview Survey, from 2005, 66.4 percent of women over 40 reported having a mammogram in the previous two years. Using that two-year time frame, it's a similar 69 percent in this survey.

Fewer report having had a breast exam in a doctor's office without a mammogram -- between three in 10 and four in 10 women have ever had this done, fewer recently.

Breast cancer -- the second-leading cause of cancer death among women -- is the subject of a divisionwide ABC News series "The Fight Against Breast Cancer" that airs beginning at 7 a.m. EDT today.

The poll results overall suggest broad awareness of breast-cancer screening but far from ideal follow-through, even among higher-risk, older women.