United States: A new study has found that many women might skip important breast cancer screenings because of too many false positive test results.
Researchers from UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center looked at over 3.5 million mammograms done for more than one million women between 2005 and 2017. These false positives can make women worried and less likely to follow up with their screenings.
False Positives Lead to Lower Screening Rates
As reported by fox news, Women who received a true-negative result were more likely to return for the future screenings with a 77 percent compliance rate.
By the comparison among those who are receiving a false positive results and here only 61 percent returned for another mammogram in the six months and the 67 percent returned for a recommended biopsy and a false positive occurs when a mammogram shows an abnormal result that which is investigated further but does not lead to a cancer diagnosis.
Impact of False Positives on Screening Behavior
We discovered that those patients were less likely to have a subsequent screening mammogram if they received a call back or notice for additional tests that did not positively identify cancer, particularly if they were recalled for a short interval follow up or biopsy or if their previous two screening mammograms yield a false positive result, Miglioretti said.
Miglioretti said she was surprised by the findings, as surveys have indicated that women feel they would continue their screening at the same level even if they received a false-positive.
‘But there is something about the process that appears to affect their behaviour and although they state that they will go back, some never do,’ she continued. Another surprising subject, according to Miglioretti, was that the recommendation for a false-positive short-interval follow-up, or GP, which means that the patient needs to come back in six months for diagnostic imaging to assess a change in the abnormality, had the most significant effect on a woman’s probability not to come for future screenings.
Differences in Compliance Rates
”However, even at five years of follow up of women who had a false-positive result, it was found that, women who received short-interval follow-up recommendation were the least in compliance with future screening mammograms.
Compared with all other groups, Asian and Hispanic/Latinx women were the least likely to come back for future screenings after a false positive.
“That is why I hypothesized that the probability of returning would be lowest among those who had a benign biopsy,” she added.
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