TempoLife › Ominaisuudet › Health screening by age: which test and when › sweden
Screening in Sweden
Sweden decides screening centrally and delivers it regionally. It has the widest mammography band in the region, an aortic scan for 65-year-old men, and an explicit national decision not to offer PSA screening.
This page describes screening programmes; it is not a diagnosis, not a personal risk assessment and not a substitute for your own health service. Age bands are set nationally and change — the invitation you receive, and the body named on your country page, outrank anything written here. Screening is for people without symptoms: a new lump, blood you can see, a mole that has changed, unexplained weight loss or a sudden change in vision or hearing needs a clinician now, whatever a recent screening result said.
The programmes
| Programme | Who | Age band and interval | Test | How it reaches you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breast cancer screening (mammography) | Women | 40–74, every 2 years | Mammography, every 18–24 months | Invitation |
| Cervical screening (HPV test) | Women | 23–70, interval lengthens with age | HPV test | Invitation |
| Bowel cancer screening (stool test) | Everyone | 60–74, every 2 years | Faecal blood test | Invitation |
| Abdominal aortic aneurysm scan | Men | at 65, once | One abdominal ultrasound | Invitation |
Recommended, and deliberately not recommended
Socialstyrelsen assesses each candidate screening programme against a published framework and issues a national recommendation, which the twenty-one regions then deliver. What makes the Swedish list useful reading, wherever you live, is that it also records the refusals. Organised PSA screening for men aged 50 to 70 is assessed and not recommended. Screening 75-year-olds for atrial fibrillation is assessed and not recommended. Adding X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy to the newborn blood spot for boys is assessed and not recommended. A "no" from a body that also says yes to eight other programmes is a considered answer, not an absence of one.
Mammography from 40
Sweden invites women from 40 to 74 to mammography every 18 to 24 months — a decade earlier at the young end than Estonia, Finland, Norway or Denmark, and wider than the European core recommendation of 50 to 69. Since 2016 it has been free of charge nationally. Screening younger breasts is harder: tissue is denser, cancers are rarer, and the proportion of call-backs that end in nothing is higher. Sweden’s judgement is that the balance still favours screening; several neighbours reading the same trials came to a different one.
The aortic scan for 65-year-old men
One programme in Sweden has nothing to do with cancer. Men are offered a single abdominal ultrasound in the year they turn 65, looking for an abdominal aortic aneurysm — a silent widening of the main artery that gives no symptoms until it tears. It is one scan, it takes minutes, and it is the only chance the system takes to look. Most men are told the aorta is normal and never need another; a wide one is monitored, and a very wide one is repaired before it ruptures.
Cervical and bowel
Cervical screening is HPV-based and covers women from 23 to 70, with the interval lengthening as you get older because a negative virus test buys more reassurance than a negative cell sample ever did. Bowel screening covers everyone from 60 to 74 with a stool blood test every two years, rolled out region by region. Both arrive as an invitation, and both are free within the programme.
Age by age
The same table again, turned around: every age at which something falls due, so you can find your own and read across. This is rendered on the server, so it works whether or not the calculator below does.
Women: the age ladder
| Age | What is due |
|---|---|
| 23 | Cervical screening (HPV test) — HPV test |
| 40 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 42 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 44 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 46 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 48 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 50 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 52 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 54 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 56 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 58 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months |
| 60 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 62 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 64 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 66 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 68 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 70 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 72 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 74 | Breast cancer screening (mammography) — Mammography, every 18–24 months; Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
Men: the age ladder
| Age | What is due |
|---|---|
| 60 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 62 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 64 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 65 | Abdominal aortic aneurysm scan — One abdominal ultrasound |
| 66 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 68 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 70 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 72 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
| 74 | Bowel cancer screening (stool test) — Faecal blood test |
Where an interval is set regionally, only the age the band opens is listed — the country’s own body publishes the repeat interval. Ages are the age you reach in the calendar year, because target groups across the region are built from birth years rather than birth dates.
Work out your own years
Your own timeline
Enter a birth year and the table below fills in with every invitation that country expects to send you, and the calendar year each one is due. Nothing is sent anywhere — the whole calculation happens in this page.
JavaScript is off, so the timeline is not calculated here. The age ladders on each country page below are the same information rendered on the server — find your age and read across.
The calendar file contains one all-day reminder per invitation, in the month you were born, for the years still ahead. It is a prompt to expect a letter, not the letter itself.
Sources: Socialstyrelsen — national screening programmes, final recommendations · Socialstyrelsen — cervical cancer screening recommendation · Socialstyrelsen — abdominal aortic aneurysm screening recommendation · checked 2026-09-07
Usein kysytyt kysymykset
At what age does mammography start in Sweden?
At 40. Socialstyrelsen recommends that all regions offer mammography to women aged 40 to 74 every 18 to 24 months, and it has been free of charge nationally since 2016 — the widest band in the Nordic and Baltic region.
Why does Sweden not offer PSA screening?
Socialstyrelsen assessed organised PSA screening for men aged 50 to 70 and recommends against it. The trial evidence shows a small reduction in prostate cancer deaths bought at the cost of a large number of men diagnosed and treated for cancers that would never have troubled them.
Who is offered the aortic aneurysm scan in Sweden?
Men in the year they turn 65 are offered a single abdominal ultrasound. It is the one non-cancer screening programme in the Swedish national list, and for most men it is a one-off all-clear.
Which ages are invited to cervical screening in Sweden?
Women aged 23 to 70 are offered HPV-based screening free of charge. The interval lengthens with age, because a negative HPV test rules out risk for longer than a negative cell sample did.
The tests you will be invited to
Breast cancer screening (mammography)
An X-ray of each breast, read by two radiologists, repeated every two years across a band of ages that starts at 40 in Sweden and 50 almost everywhere else. What it finds, what it misses and what a call-back means.
Cervical screening (HPV test)
Almost every country in the region has switched from looking for abnormal cells to looking for the virus that causes them. The test is better, so the gap between tests is longer — and in several countries you can now take the sample yourself.
Bowel cancer screening (stool test)
A sample from one bowel movement, taken at home and posted. It is the only screening programme in the region that routinely prevents cancers rather than only finding them early — because the follow-up removes the polyp.
Abdominal aortic aneurysm scan
The only non-cancer screening programme in the region. Sweden offers men a single abdominal ultrasound in the year they turn 65, looking for a silent widening of the main artery.
The other countries
Age bands differ across the region by up to a decade for the same programme, so a comparison is genuinely useful — particularly if you have moved, or if family live elsewhere.
Estonia · Finland · Latvia · Lithuania · Norway · Denmark
The whole regional tableHow invitations work
Between the letters, keep your own record
A screening invitation arrives every few years. TempoLife keeps the rest — weight, blood pressure, sleep and the notes you want to find again — so the next appointment starts with facts rather than guesses.