Millie the Mobile Mammogram Truck was missing from Katherine in 2020 due to delayed upgrades, leaving more than 1000 women with no choice but to travel three hours to Darwin for a mammogram.

An NT Health spokeswoman said the size and regularity of the bus service will depend on how many women decide to use it.

The bus will take passengers to a clinic in Palmerston or Darwin before returning to Katherine.

The spokeswoman said at least 130 women who were due for mammograms travelled independently to Darwin or Palmerston last year, but the bus service is aimed to make the journey as convenient as possible until a service resumes in Katherine.

The NT Government has confirmed the mobile breast screening service, which usually visits Katherine annually, will return to the town on July 1 and leave town on August 6.

Sue Moran previously worked at the Katherine Community Health Centre and has used the mobile service in previous years.

She is supportive of the interim bus service, if it can be advertised effectively to the mainly elderly residents who are eligible for free mammograms.

"Every year I've had one for 23 years," Ms Moran said.

"I appreciate there's some people that can't get up [to Darwin]... I think the bus service, if that's what they're doing, I think that is a very generous idea.

"The message needs to get out... they're not all online or on Facebook."

She said an alternative to the annual mobile service will prevent a bottleneck of bookings as some people try to access their first mammogram since 2019.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting Australian women.

Early detection dramatically increases survival rates.

In Australia, one in seven women will be diagnosed with breast cancer by the age of 85 while 3000 people will lose their life this year to the disease.

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