Women with false-positive mammogram face higher risk of later breast cancer
False-positive mammography may not just be a false alarm, findings suggest.
Women who receive a false-positive mammography result are 61% more likely to develop breast cancer over the next 20 years than women without a false positive, a study shows.
Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden said the risk was highest in the first four years following a false-positive result, as well as for women aged 60-75 and those with lower breast density.
The population-based study is also the first to show a greater likelihood of death following a false positive, with a 7% and 84% increased risk of all-cause and breast cancer death, respectively.
“These findings can be used to develop individualised risk-based breast cancer screening after a false-positive result,” the authors reported in JAMA Oncology.
