WASHINGTON — A rigorous program to train more than 133,000 women to routinely examine their breasts for lumps has not reduced breast cancer deaths after five years, a study shows.

Final answers from the study done in China, where few women ever have breast X-rays, are another five years away. But experts say the preliminary findings suggest that public health programs should put even more emphasis on mammography and less on breast self-examination.

The research suggests that even a vigorous program of instruction in breast self-examination is not successful in early detection of breast cancer or in reducing deaths, said Dr. David B. Thomas of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, first author of the study.

In comparing 133,000 Chinese women who received intensive training in breast self-examination and a similar number who did not, “we found there was no difference” in either cancer deaths or in cancer detection, Thomas said.

“So far, we don’t have a hint that it does any good,” Thomas said. “But in order to get a final word on this, we will have to follow this group for five more years.”

A report on the study will be published Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Some public health groups push self-examination and have proposed starting large-scale programs to train women in techniques, Thomas said. Private companies even sell self-exam products and instruction videos.

If in five years the final Chinese study results confirm that self-exam does little good, he said, “then those kinds of efforts would need to be re-evaluated” and “scarce public health resources probably be better used for some other purpose.”

Robert A. Smith, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, said his group will continue to recommend breast self-examination as part of a program that includes regular medical exams and periodic mammography.

“Breast self-examination’s value is not so much as a screening technique, but as a means of raising awareness of changes that could be abnormal in the breast,” he said.