Women with false-positive mammograms less likely to return for follow-ups, study finds

DAVIS – New research out of UC Davis shows an alarming statistic when it comes to women and mammograms.

To understand the latest study out of UC Davis, you have to know what a false positive is. In this case, it's when a woman goes in for a mammogram and doctors see something that needs additional screening just to make sure.

"So we found women that have these false positives, they had to come back for additional imaging. Sometimes, they had to come back for a biopsy, but they didn't have cancer," said Diana Migloretti, a professor and division chief of biostatistics at UC Davis.

So you might ask, what's the problem? Better to be safe than sorry.

But Migloretti found that women with false-positive results were less likely to return for a follow-up screening.

"It can be a very stressful period for a woman because she doesn't know what's going on. She thinks she might have cancer and then she goes in for that imaging, sometimes even a biopsy, she doesn't have cancer she might feel like that was a big waste of time," Migloretti said.

Health professionals want women to know that this can happen. And if or when you're called back for a follow-up, it's completely normal.

"It's really important for people to understand that it's a normal part of the screening process, it's a frequent part. Ten percent of mammograms require this additional imaging. It almost always turns out to be normal," Migloretti said.

This summer, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force updated its guidelines to say that women aged 40-74 should be screened every other year.