[en] The risk seems to be acceptable if the age-dependency of the frequency of breast cancer is disregarded, i.e. if calculation is done with average values, as is being done frequently (15, 25, 32, 48). This procedure however veils the real circumstances in the examination of young women thus also veiling a risk which could otherwise be made precise and avoidable. The risk of radiation-induced cancerogenesis in the female breast was verified by similar statements made by several empiric investigations on man. The course of the dose-effect-relation in the region of few rad is still unexplained however, although the results do not contradict to the assumption of a linear dose-effect-relation. Thus it seems not advisable to ignore the induction of carcinomas by x-radiation for the sphere of mammography with the doses usually applied today. A reduction of radiation exposition by dose-saving measures to one tenth of the present value (or less) however would make the risk highly unimportant. Advantage/risk/cost-analyses should encourage the responsible persons to make reasonable proposals for the application of methods, in this case mammography. The discouraging of patients whom mammography is indicated for would be a side-effect which is not desired. Just as wrong would be the stimulation of an unjustified feeling of being sure and the demand for costly medical measures by uncritical reports of success. The indication of the considerably high costs of mammography should, together with the advantage expected, be a quantitative criterion for the optimal distribution of limited means the necessity of which cannot be denied. (orig.)