False Positives: Breast Cancer Study Focuses

Evaluation of breast cancer, such as digital mammography, scans can often be a "false positive" - the belief that breast cancer is a perfectly healthy, CBS News reported.

These false alarms often risky and unnecessary anxiety and unnecessary follow-up results.

In order to show how false positives are common, the researchers studied 170,000 women who have their first screening mammogram in their 40 or 50 years and about 4,500 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer. The researchers found that start more than half of the women who make annual mammograms, can expect nearly 40 years have led to a false positive and called back for further screening. Among the women who are called, about 7 percent is recommended, a biopsy, which turns out to be subjected to a negative - that is, no cancer is present.

According to researchers, screening every two years instead of annually, the risk of false-positive, about one-third. Screening every two years, but could lose with a slightly increased risk of cancer to advanced.

Regardless of the projection system to decide for women, it is good for them to know that false alarms are common, study author Dr. Rebecca Hubbard, a researcher at the Seattle Center for Health Studies Group Health, CBS News said. "We hope that by helping women know what they expect in terms of false-positive results are likely to be less anxious when you are called for screening or biopsy," CBS News said Hubbard wrote in a statement .

The study was 18th in the October, the Annals of Internal Medicine published