Cancer Screening Guidelines

Cooper Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society recommend the following cancer screening guidelines for people at average risk for cancer and without any specific symptoms. People who are at increased risk for certain cancers may need to follow a different screening schedule, such as starting at an earlier age or being screened more often.

For more information about cancer screenings, talk to your physician.

Breast Cancer

• Mammograms every one to two years for women starting at age 40 and yearly starting at age 50.
• Clinical breast exam (CBE) every 3 years for women in their 20s and 30s and yearly for women 40 and over.
• Women should perform monthly breast self-exam (BSE) starting in their 20s.

Colon and Rectal Cancer

Beginning at age 50, both men and women should use one of the screening tests below:

• Flexible sigmoidoscopy every 5 years,
• or colonoscopy every 10 years,
• or double contrast barium enema every 5 years,
• or CT colonography (virtual colonoscopy) every 5 years,
• or fecal occult blood test every year with yearly digital rectal exams (DRE),
• or fecal immunochemical test every year with yearly DRE

Cervical Cancer

• Begin cervical cancer screening about 3 years after having vaginal intercourse, but no later than by age 21.
• Yearly screening with the regular Pap test or every 2 years using liquid-based testing.
• Beginning at age 30, women who have had three normal Pap test results in a row may get screened every 2 to 3 years or every 3 years (but not more frequently) with either the conventional or liquidbased Pap test, plus the HPV DNAtest.
• Women 70 years of age or older who have had three or more normal Pap tests in a row and no abnormal Pap test results in the last 10 years may choose to stop having cervical cancer screening.
• Women who had a total hysterectomy (removal of the uterus and cervix) may stop screening, unless the surgery was done to treat cervical cancer or pre-cancer.
• Women who had a partial hysterectomy and still have a cervix should continue to follow the guidelines above.

Prostate Cancer

• Both the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and DRE should be offered annually, beginning at age 50, to men who have at least a 10-year life expectancy.
• Men at high risk (African-American men and men with a strong family of one or more first-degree relatives [father, brothers] diagnosed before age 65) should begin testing at age 45.