Background: The aim of this paper is to give an overview of organisational issues of the Hungarian nationwide organised breast cancer screening programme and to provide the results of the first screening round of the programme for the years 2002-2003.
Patients and methods: Data were derived from the financial database of the National Health Insurance Fund Administration covering the period 2000-2003. Women who underwent mammography screening were included into the study.
Results: Uptake of the organised screening programme in 2002-2003 was 45.09%, while the recall rate was 7.23%. Malignant cases represented 65.38% of total surgeries and 0.36% of total number of screened women yielding a cancer detection rate 3.6 per 1000 screened women. Malignant cases of 10.78% were identified as ductal carcinoma in situ, while 89.22% was invasive cancer. Benign to malignant ratio was 0.54 : 1.
Conclusion: There is therefore an urgent need to closely monitor performance and to review programme policies and procedures with the aim of increasing both the participation rate and the proportion of women eligible to attend screening.