WEDNESDAY, Sept. 4, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Women are less likely to return for subsequent screening after false-positive mammography results, according to a study published online Sept. 3 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Diana L. Miglioretti, Ph.D., from the University of California in Davis, and colleagues examined the association between screening mammography results and the probability of subsequent screening in a cohort study involving 3,529,825 screening mammograms (3,184,482 true negatives and 345,343 false positives) performed from 2005 to 2017 among 1,053,672 women aged 40 to 73 years.

The researchers found that the likelihood of returning was higher after a true-negative result than after a false-positive recall for additional imaging only, short-interval follow-up, or biopsy (adjusted absolute difference, −1.9, −15.9, and −10.0 percentage points, respectively). The largest decreases in the probability of returning after a false positive versus a true negative were seen for Asian and Hispanic/Latino women for short-interval follow-up or biopsy (−20 to −25 points and −13 to −14 points, respectively). A false-positive result on the second of two screening mammograms within five years was associated with a reduced probability of returning for a third, irrespective of the first screening result.

“Physicians should educate their patients about the importance of continued screening after false-positive results, especially given the associated increased future risk for breast cancer,” the authors write.

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