Patients' reports of counseling on mammography screening by health-care providers--North Carolina, 1997.

Regular mammography screening combined with timely and appropriate treatment can reduce mortality from breast cancer by 30% in women aged 50-69 years and 16% in women aged 40-49 years. A physician's recommendation has been strongly associated with a patient having a mammogram. This report analyzes data collected during 1997 in North Carolina as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which indicated that 23% of women aged > or =40 years who had had a routine physical examination during the 2 years preceding the survey did not recall having a discussion about mammography with a health-care provider.