Do False-Positive Mammograms Predict Cancer Risk?
“We have a much lower threshold for calling women back because of the nature of our health care system, so you can’t necessarily equate what is happening overseas to what is happening here,” Bernick says.
A nationwide study published last October found that 61% of women in the U.S. screened annually for 10 years will have at least one false-positive reading, and up to 1 in 10 with false-positive results will have received a recommendation for a biopsy.
Bernick says some women who have had false-positive mammograms or benign biopsies in the past may be less concerned than they should be about future findings.
“Common sense tells us that early detection of breast cancer is good and most screening programs have been successful in reducing breast cancer deaths,” said lead author Lideke van der Steeg, M.D.
“However, while some women truly benefit from early detection, others experience harm and unnecessary anxiety. The women who received false-positives in our study experienced a significant reduction in their quality of life, especially if they were prone to anxiety, and the effects of this lasted at least a year.
“In fact, women who had a tendency to be anxious fared much worse if they received a false-positive – which is estimated to happen in 60 per cent of abnormal mammograms – than if they were actually diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Women with abnormal mammograms attending three hospitals over a five-year period were invited to participate. Their quality of life (QoL) was assessed using the World Health Organization’s Quality of Life instrument 100, which assesses QoL in six domains – physical health, psychological health, level of independence, social relationships, environment and spirituality.
Clinical data was obtained from the women’s medical records and they were also asked to complete questionnaires providing demographic information such as age, marital status, education and socioeconomic status.
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Source: Wiley-Blackwell
“A woman should never ignore a new finding based on a history of false-positive mammograms,” she says.
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By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Health News