FALSE-NEGATIVE MAMMOGRAMS IN PATIENTS WITH BREAST-CANCER

  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 24  (1) , 50-+
Abstract
Because of reports that negative mammographic findings have resulted in a delay of treatment in patients with breast cancer, experience with mammography in 160 patients, admitted to the Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital in Montreal [Canada] over a 28 mo. period, who had histologically verified carcinoma of the breast was reviewed. Of these patients, 153 had clinically palpable masses and 7 had occult carcinomas. The mammogram was positive for carcinoma in 112 (73.2%) and negative in 41 (26.8%). In 44 patients under the age of 50 yr, the mammogram was positive in 26 (59.1%) and negative in 18 (40.9%), a significant difference (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the findings of mammograms read by the hospital radiologists and those read by community radiologists. Mammography apparently is not a reliable technique for evaluating the clinically suspicious breast lesion and must not be used as a substitute for biopsy of such lesions.

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