Black, young women have more false-positive breast screenings

Allegretto Amerigo Headshot

Monday, December 1 | 3:30 p.m.-3:40 p.m. | M7-SSBR04-4 | Room E451A

Visitors can see how false-positive cases affect return to breast cancer screening for women in various subgroups.

Medha Gupta from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, will present research showing that Black women and young women experience a higher proportion of false-positive screenings compared with other race and age groups.

False-positive results from mammography screening can be burdensome, but data is inconclusive on how they affect return to screening for women of various backgrounds.

The Gupta team studied associations between false-positive mammograms and the likelihood of returning to screening. It stratified the data by race and age.

The team reported a 13.8% overall false-positive rate per screening exam, with the highest rates being found among Black women (43.3%) and among women ages 40 to 49 (32%).

Among women who returned to screening, 52.3% were Asian, 57.4% were Black, and 65.1% were white. And women with true-negative mammograms returned to screening more often than women with false-positive results (90.1% vs. 58%, p < 0.001). And women with true-negative results had a shorter median time to return compared with women with false-positive results (388 days vs. 423 days, p < 0.001).

The team also reported no significant difference in return-to-screening rates between false-positive results found on imaging only versus biopsy. However, women with false-positive findings on imaging only had a longer median time to return compared to biopsy findings (483 days vs. 420 days, p < 0.001).

Attend this session to learn more about these findings and what interventions could help reduce uncertainty and decrease recall rates.