Mammography screening and false positives

Physicians who counsel women about breast cancer screening need to convey that the cumulative risk of a false positive is nearly 50% after 10 mammograms and 22% after 10 clinical breast examinations, Joann Elmore, MD/MPH, University of Washington School of Medicine, et al., conclude in a study published in the April 16 New England Journal of Medicine. Measures should be developed to minimize the associated psychological and economic costs of false positives; one suggested method is to use on-site radiologists to obtain immediate work-ups rather than requiring women to return for follow-up diagnostic procedures. The conclusions are based on a 10-year, retrospective cohort study of 2,400 women age 40-69 enrolled at a large New England HMO in which a total of 9,762 screening mammograms and 10,905 clinical breast examinations were performed. Researchers found the risk of false positives to be higher in the 40-49 group than for women 50 and older