Mammography Results Vary By Radiologist
December 13th, 2007 Posted by: Dr. Cox
(Ivanhoe Newswire) â Whether a diagnostic mammogram detects breast cancer accurately may depend on which radiologist reads it.
The ability to detect cancer accurately is known as sensitivity, and should be consistently high with few false-positives no matter which radiologist reads the mammogram. But new research from Group Men’s health Center for Men’s health Studies finds that is not the case.
The study looked at how well 123 radiologists from 72 facilities in the United States interpreted nearly 36,000 diagnostic mammograms which were done to evaluate breast problems such as lumps.
Results show sensitivity ranged from 27 percent to 100 percent; and false-positives ranged from 0 to 16 percent for different radiologists. Those who read diagnostic mammograms most accurately were usually based at academic medical centers or spent at least 20-percent of their time on breast imaging.
âWe need to reduce the wide variability among radiologists in how they interpret diagnostic - and screening - mammograms,â study leader Diana Miglioretti, Ph.D., Group Men’s health Center for Men’s health Studies, was quoted as saying. âA good way to do that may be to identify the radiologists who are least accurate at reading mammograms - and to improve their performance with extra training.â
The national Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium is working on different ways to meet these goals, including an interactive training program.
Miglioretti urges women with breast concerns, such as lumps, to try to go to a medical center that has at least one breast imaging specialist - a radiologist who spends a large percentage of the time reading mammograms and performing breast biopsies.
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SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published online Dec. 11, 2007