Long-term trends in incidence, characteristics and prognosis of screen-detected and interval cancers in women participating in the Dutch breast cancer screening programme

Background No studies are available in which changes over time in characteristics and prognosis of patients with interval breast cancers (ICs) and screen-detected breast cancers (SDCs) have been compared. The aim was to study these trends between 1995 and 2018. Methods All women with invasive SDCs ( N = 4290) and ICs ( N = 1352), diagnosed in a southern mammography screening region in the Netherlands, were included and followed until date of death or 31 December 2022. Results The 5-year overall survival rate of women with SDCs increased from 91.4% for those diagnosed in 1995–1999 to 95.0% for those diagnosed in 2013–2018 ( P < 0.001), and from 74.8 to 91.6% ( P < 0.001) in the same periods for those with ICs. A similar trend was observed for the 10-year survival rates. After adjustment for changes in tumour characteristics, the hazard ratio (HR) for overall survival was 0.47 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.38–0.59) for women with SDCs diagnosed in the period 2013–2018, compared to the women diagnosed in the period 1995–1999. For the women with ICs this HR was 0.27 (95% CI: 0.19–0.40). Conclusion The prognosis of women with ICs has improved rapidly since 1995 and is now almost similar to that of women with SDCs.