2023-11-27 11:49:59
Women who receive a false-positive mammogram are more likely to develop breast cancer over the next 20 years. Screening is allowing, as in breast cancer, high survival rates.
Women who are told a positive mammogram result without a diagnosis of cancer (known as a false positive) are more likely to develop breast cancer over the next 20 years than those who do not receive that result.
This is shown by a study in JAMA Oncology conducted on a cohort of 497,343 women in Sweden, with a median age of 52 years. Over the two decades, an average of 60% higher risk was recorded among women with false positives.
The risk was highest for women between 60 and 75 years old and for those with low breast density. It was also more pronounced in the four to six years after a false positive result.
False positive is one of the risks associated with mammography screening. According to data provided by the researchers of the Swedish study, in the United States it is estimated that 11% of women who take the test during screening receive a false positive, while in Europe the proportion is 2.5%. “Despite the low European rate, the figure corresponds to a large cumulative risk of false positive results,” the authors write in the study. “After ten screenings, one in five women in Europe will experience at least one false positive on mammography. Since false positive results can cause psychological distress and anxiety, they can also influence attendance rates [a los cribados] and jeopardize the success of screening programs.”
The analysis of these results has been carried out by researchers from the Karolinska Institute, who used data from the Karolinska Mammography Project for Breast Cancer Risk Prediction (Karma). In total, they identified 45,213 women with a false-positive mammogram result and 452,130 women of the same age who did not have one, all of whom attended the mammography screening program in Stockholm.
Long Detection
The research gives rise to three proposals that the authors summarize in the study: “First, in addition to performing a biopsy, the age at the time of a false positive in mammography and breast density must be taken into account to individualize surveillance programs in these women. Second, there may be particular value in conducting intensive surveillance in the next two rounds of the screening program. Third, long-term disease awareness should be promoted among women with a false positive result to help address the increased risk of breast cancer incidence and mortality.”
The authors, led by Kamila Czene, professor at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska, also suggest that “as women age and are eventually no longer invited to screening tests (in most countries, mammography screening programs end at age 70) it would be worth studying whether women with a false positive result will benefit from a prolonged screening program.” Sonia Moreno
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