Researchers at Medical College of Georgia in Augusta looked at the number of mammography facilities in each county that were certified under the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA), and whether there was a relationship between site prevalence and breast cancer mortality rates.
Drs. Kandace Klein and James Rawson compared Georgia county populations, locations of MQSA-certified mammography facilities, and breast cancer mortality rates. They used data from the 2000 census, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the Georgia Department of Human Resources Division of Public Health.
Out of 159 total counties in Georgia, only 58 have calculated breast cancer mortality rates, and 56 of the 159 counties do not have an MQSA-certified mammography site at all. Klein and Rawson found that four counties in Georgia have calculated mortality rates for breast cancer but no certified mammography facility; these counties have an average breast cancer mortality rate of 34.1%, compared to 25.4% overall for the state of Georgia and 25.5% for the U.S.
However, the study didn't necessarily find that more sites meant lower mortality rates. The one Georgia county with the most mammography facilities actually had a higher mortality rate than the state average.
Klein and Rawson also found that 19 counties have a calculated mortality rate and only one mammography site -- these counties' average breast cancer mortality rate is 27.5%. The five counties with the highest breast cancer mortality rates have an average of 1.2 MQSA-certified mammography sites per county.
