Less Frequent Mammograms May Lower False-Positive Results
17.10.11
HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, Oct. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Women who undergo mammograms every two years instead of every year have fewer false-positive results, but the trade-off is a slightly higher risk of being diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer, new research finds.
"After 10 years, biennial mammograms reduced the risk of false-positives by about one-third and, over a lifetime, that would accumulate," said Rebecca Hubbard, lead author of a study published in the Oct. 18 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine and funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
But the increase in breast cancer diagnoses wasn't statistically significant, she said. And breast cancer stage was only analyzed in women who actually developed cancer.
On the other hand, among roughly 170,000 women screened between 1994 and 2006 and followed for a decade, more than half who received annual mammograms were called back at least once because of a false-positive result, and 7 to 9 percent were recommended to get a biopsy.
Source: U.S. News & World Report