Women whose breast cancer is detected by mammography have a lower risk of the cancer recurring after treatment compared to those who discover a tumor by other means, a Finnish study said.

Women with cancerous tumors detected outside of the mammography screening process — usually a manual breast exam — had a 90 percent higher risk of the disease recurring elsewhere in their bodies within a decade, compared to women whose tumors were detected by mammography, study author Dr. Heikki Joensuu of Helsinki University Central Hospital said.

More breast cancers are being detected by mammography screening as the procedure is becoming more common, and the tumors found are often smaller, the study said.

A woman’s choice of treatment — or whether to skip treatment altogether depending on the patients age and the cancer’s aggressiveness — is based on the risk of the cancer metastasizing, so a correct diagnosis is essential, said the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study included 2,842 women identified from the Finnish Cancer Registry as having breast cancer in 1991 or 1992 who were followed for an average of nearly 10 years.

A new blood test for prostate cancer could change the way the disease is diagnosed and treated, it has been revealed.

Not only is it far more accurate than the standard PSA test, but it can also detect cancers that have started to spread.

Researchers in the US hope the test will be available to patients in 18 months.

Protein specific antigen or PSA is released into the blood by prostate cells.

For years, it has been relied upon as the first indicator of prostate cancer but some patients with abnormal levels are cancer-free, while others have cancers that are missed because of low readings.

The new test, developed at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland, US, looks for a different protein called early prostate cancer antigen-2, or EPCA-2.

Patients with an EPCA-2 cut-off level of 30 nanograms per millilitre (ngml) of blood or higher are considered to be at risk of prostate cancer.

Tests on 330 patients including some with prostate cancer showed that the test was negative for 97% of patients who did not have the disease.

EPCA-2 levels at or above the cut-off point were detected in 90% of men with cancer confined to the prostate, and 98% of those with cancer that had spread beyond the gland.

Overall, the test identified prostate cancer patients with 94% accuracy. In contrast, PSA levels of between four and 10 ngml detected only 85% of patients with prostate cancer.