Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:52AM EDT
By Martha Kerr
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who are told their mammogram shows a possible cancer that turns out to be a false alarm are likely to suffer anxiety for a long time, according to a new study.
"U.S. women who get a false-positive are more likely to come back for their next routine screen," lead author Dr. Noel T. Brewer, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Reuters Health. "On the face of it, this seems like a good thing, but scaring women for long periods of time to get them to screen again does not seem like the best approach."
Brewer and colleagues conducted an analysis of 23 studies showing the effects of false-positive results of mammography on women. The studies involved a total of 313,967 women aged 40 and older.
Women who were given a false-positive mammogram result performed breast self-exams more frequently than other women, the investigators report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL24516520070412?feedType=RSS
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