Celebrity news does not seem to increase women's compliance with mammography screening, according to a study published online June 8 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
A team led by Marco Huesch, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University, investigated the impact on the use of screening mammography of actor Angelina Jolie's 2013 announcement that she had undergone a prophylactic double mastectomy. The researchers compared weekly utilization in the two years before and after the announcement, including 48,110 consecutive screening mammograms conducted between May 2011 and May 2015.
Huesch and colleagues found no upsurge in screening mammography around May 2013, and, in fact, they noticed a flattening of utilization in the middle of 2014.
"In our ... analysis in a large regional breast imaging center, we found no support for the hypothesis that this celebrity news drove increased screening," they concluded.
