A study by Dutch researchers says that an early detection of breast cancer early still saves lives, NBC News reports.

The study says that that the use of regular mammograms is recommended to detect breast tumors at the earliest possible stages. The study also assures that less invasive surgery is as effective a treatment as a radical mastectomy.

For the study, the Netherlands team led by Sepideh Saadatmand of the Erasmus University Medical Center studied nearly 174,000 breast cancer cases registered in the country from 1999-2012.

"Diagnosis of breast cancer at an early tumor stage remains vital," they concluded.

The study shows that after 2006, the breast cancer survival rate rose to 96 percent because the tumors were smaller when they were removed and less likely to have spread. Also, less-invasive surgery such as lumpectomies became more common after 2006.

This suggests that mammograms are saving lives, argued Dr. Ines Vaz-Luis and Dr. Harold Burstein of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.

"Of late, there has been debate about whether mammography saves lives or whether, in a modern era of effective therapy, detecting cancers when they are smaller makes any meaningful difference to patients," they wrote in a commentary.

"Saadatmand and colleagues' study does not specifically answer the question. But it strongly suggests that, even after accounting for biological variation in tumors and enhanced treatments, tumor stage at diagnosis still matters. That is a powerful albeit indirect argument in favor of screening mammography," they added.

"Catching cancers when they are smaller still makes a difference."

Mammograms are a subject of controvery in the U.S and there are still doubts regarding whether to get them at all, at what age to get them and how often to get them.