The researchers don't seem to know why, but there is a decline in the number of women in the United States age 40 or older who have had mammograms over the last two years.

A study published in the journal Cancer says that during the period from 1987 to 2000, there was a steady increase in women receiving mammograms. They believe this to be somewhat responsible for the increase in breast cancer survival that occurred during that period. Supporting the phrase -- early detection saves lives.

They evaluate the trends in mammography use by a survey that is administered to 35,000 adults called the National Health Interview Survey. The current analysis focused on women who had mammograms in the last two years. The survey showed that in the year 2000, 70 percent of women reported they had a mammogram in the previous two years. In the year 2005, the number was down to 66 percent.

At home screening may reduce deaths from bladder cancer in men over fifty years of age. Bladder cancer is diagnosed in as many as 60,000 individuals annually in the United States and is much more common in the elderly.

Cancer of the bladder has a high cure rate if detected early enough, however, the cure rate gets much lower if the cancer spreads and metastasizes to other parts of the body. One way to diagnose the disease is to detect microscopic amounts of blood in the urine.

A trial was conducted including 1,575 men who did not have bladder cancer and were over fifty. The men underwent home screening with the use of small strips of a paper-like substance, called reagent strips. A little over 8 percent of patients who underwent screening were diagnosed with bladder cancer. At fourteen years follow-up, there were no deaths from bladder cancer among the men who underwent home screening compared with 20 percent among men who had not undergone screening.

The researchers conclude that at-home screening could indeed save lives because of early detection of bladder cancer.