False Positive Mammograms & Subsequent Breast Cancer Risk

A recent study points to a higher risk of breast cancer in women with a history of a false positive mammogram. Investigators examined the number of breast cancers occurring over 10 years with whose routine screening mammogram had resulted in either a “call back” normal mammogram or a benign breast biopsy (false positive mammograms), and compared it to the number of cancers in women whose mammogram was normal on the first go round (true negative mammogram.) Women who had a false positive mammogram had a higher risk of breast cancer in the subsequent 10 years compared to women with a true negative mammogram. How much higher? As you can see in the graph above, for every 1/000 women with a true negative mammogram, 3.9 breast cancers occurred within the subsequent 10 years. This is in contrast to women with false positive mammograms who had 5.5 breast cancers for every 1,000 women, and women with a false positive biopsy who had 7 cancers per 1,000 women. Thought the relative risks between groups is statistically significant, it’s extremely important to realize that ALL these risks are under 1%, so we are making distinctions between very small numbers. Here’s what the study results looks like in an icon array, a useful tool for illustrating comparative risks that are under 1%. Among the 1,000 women pictured in each array below, the pink ladies are the ones who developed breast cancer within the 10 years, while the grey ladies remain cancer free. Furth...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Breast Cancer Mammography breast biopsy false positive mammogram Risk Source Type: blogs