Risk of False Alarm for Breast Cancer
Frederick R. Jelovsek
If you are a woman who gets a mammogram on a fairly regular basis, what is the chance that you will have a distressing false alarm? In other words, what is the chance that you will get a notice or call from your doctor asking you to have some more studies because the mammogram or the breast exam was not entirely normal?
In a recent study, Elmore JG et al: Ten-year risk of false positive screening mammograms and clinical breast examinations. N Engl J Med 1998; 338:1089-96., the investigators studied 2400 women ages 40-69 who had a total of 9762 screening mammograms and 10905 screening breast clinical physical exams over a 10 year period. This averaged 4 mammograms and 5 clinical breast exams during the study time.
Of the women screened, one third had abnormal testing results that required further evaluation.
Breast Cancer Detection
| Study | False Positive Rate |
|---|---|
| Over 10 years | |
| Mammogram | 23.8% |
| Breast exam | 13.4% |
| Either | 31.7% |
| After 10 exams* | |
| Mammogram | 49.1% |
| Breast exam | 22.3% |
| * - Estimated by the authors | |
Not all of the suspicious studies lead to breast biopsy, however. The authors did estimate that in women who will not develop breast cancer, 18.6% will undergo biopsy by the time they have had 10 mammograms and 6.2% will undergo breast biopsy by the time they have had 10 breast exams over the age of 40.
Women need to be aware that there is this high of a rate of false alarms. Unfortunately using present technology this is a price we must pay to pick up breast cancers early. Physicians and scientists must continue working to lower these instances of false alarms.
top of page
| Other Related Articles |
|---|
Risk for Breast Cancer in Younger Women Plant Estrogens and Breast Cancer |
or sign up
Post a comment