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The article reports on the debate over the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's (USPSTF) recommendation against routine screening mammography in women under 50. It presents a summary of the USPSTF's findings about breast cancer and mammography in the U.S. According to the Task Force, breast cancer mortality has been reduced in favor of screening, and that cumulative risk for a false positive after 10 mammography screenings is more common in women 40 to 49 years of age.

In this article, the author who is a member of ASPO's Behavioral Oncology Interest Group, discusses the importance of wide involvement in screening cancer prevention and early recognition. He says that the science of decision making is the key to understanding and increasing screening observance and suggests research instructions for the subject progress.

The article offers information on a study which examined the impact of conflicting recommendations about mammography screening on women's mammography. The study performed secondary analysis of longitudinal data from the 1995 Maximizing Mammography Participation Trial. It concluded that conflicting recommendations regarding cancer screening and prevention affect patients perception.

The call for interdisciplinary research in the war on cancer has escalated over the past several years. Behavioral science has played a key role in cancer control, and several exciting opportunities exist and will develop with the ongoing significant advances made in biomedical science. The current article briefly reviews the maturity of behavioral science in the areas of prevention, early detection, and survivorship and how the partnership of behavioral and biomedical science can effectively impact cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality.