© 2003 by Oxford University Press
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 95, No. 5, 344-346,
March 5, 2003
© 2003 Oxford University Press
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Mammography and Beyond: Building Better Breast Cancer Screening Tests
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
Recent clashes in the medical literature provide a reminder that mammography is far from a perfect screening test. Newer technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging and protein-based assays may ultimately offer some advantages over mammography, but it is still too early to tell whether any of these tools will prove superior to mammography, the gold standard for breast cancer screening for decades.
In fact, there may never be a perfect test. Rather, experts say, the future of breast cancer screening may lie in not one, but a series of tests—with mammography securing a place somewhere in between.
The problem with mammography is that it raises more questions than it answers. About 75% of masses that are biopsied after a mammogram turn out to be benign, and mammography misses about 20% of tumors, particularly those that are fast-growing and those buried in dense breasts.
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