Breast cancer false positive can harm

TILBURG, Netherlands, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Some women benefit from early breast cancer detection but others experience unnecessary anxiety and reduced quality if life, a Dutch researcher says.

Lead author Dr. Lideke van der Steeg of St. Elisabeth Hospital in Tilburg, Netherlands, looked at the quality of life of 385 Dutch women with abnormal mammograms -- 233 with false positives, found to be non-cancerous, and 152 of whom were subsequently diagnosed with breast cancer.

"Women often overestimate their risk of breast cancer and the material provided by healthcare professionals and government agencies often focus on the positive aspects of screening," van der Steeg says in a statement. "In fact, women who had a tendency to be anxious fared much worse if they received a false-positive, which is estimated to happen in 60 percent of abnormal mammograms, than if they were actually diagnosed with breast cancer."

The study, published in the British Journal of Surgery, finds women with breast cancer had larger tumors and were significantly older on average -- 60.2 years -- than women in the false-positive group -- 57.3 years.

Significantly more diagnostic procedures, including biopsies, were needed in the false-positive group and these procedures were linked by the study authors to lower quality-of-life scores, van der Steeg says.