Why are some cancers missed on mammography

Abstract

The purpose of screening mammography is simply to detect a potential cancer; therefore, the radiologist should not try to make a diagnosis on the basis of screening findings alone. Additional views are important in further assessing an identified abnormality and suggesting appropriate patient treatment. According to data from the Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project, the false - negative rate of mammography is approximately 8%-10%. However, it is generally accepted that mammography is able to detect breast cancer in 95% of cases. In other words 5% of breast cancers are missed on initial mammograms. This in itself makes mammography a very accurate test as a true positive rate of 95% is very high. However, one must take into account that there is no medical test that is 100% accurate. Recent studies have emphasized the use of alternative imaging modalities to detect and diagnose breast carcinoma, including ultrasonography (US) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging.