by Playfuls Staff |
5th April 2007
Medical professionals strive to make technological progress in order to diminish the terrifying illness that is breast cancer. In an ironic twist though, a new study suggests that computerized mammography is not necessarily better than a doctor’s eyes.
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According to a study published in Wednesday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a good doctor may spot cancer relying on his eyes and experience, without the aid of computerized mammography.
On the contrary, computer-aided detection may often ring an unnecessary alarm, leading women to undergo needless biopsies, spend a lot of money and worry uselessly.
In a study of more than 429,000 mammogram results, there was a significant drop in diagnostic specificity after computer-aided detection was introduced to various centers, reported Joshua J. Fenton, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of California at Davis, and colleagues.
This was accompanied by a significant increase in false-positive results and unnecessary biopsies, they added.
“In our observational study of large numbers of community-based mammography facilities and patients, the use of computer-aided detection was associated with increases in potential harms of screening mammography, including higher recall and biopsy rates, and was of uncertain clinical benefit,” they wrote.
Radiologists using computer-assisted detection software were more likely to interpret a benign growth as potentially cancerous, which led to additional scans and needless biopsies, adding $550 million to the annual cost of breast cancer screening in the United States, researchers said.
In addition, the computerized detection system, known as CAD, did not help radiologists find more real cancers, according to the report.
Dr. Ferris Hall, a radiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who wrote an editorial accompanying the report, said some of the mistakes might have been due to inexperience with CAD, as it takes radiologists several years to learn the technology.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women, next to skin cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that 178,480 women will be diagnosed with the disease this year, and 40,460 will die of it.
Mammography, an X-ray technique that identifies dense masses like tumors, is typically used by doctors for breast cancer. This is a tricky subject though. The American College of Physicians issued a new set of guidelines this week that offer some unexpected advice to women in their 40s.
While until now they have been warned to undergo mammograms in order to identify breast cancer at its very beginning, the ACP says there are risks attached to this routine. Because breast cancer risk and the potential harms and benefits of screening mammography vary from woman to woman, the ACP recommends that a decision is made by the patient and her doctor on a case by case basis.
