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Screening interval breast cancers: mammographic features and prognosis factors
H C Burrell1, D M Sibbering, A R Wilson
1Department of Radiology, City Hospital, Nottingham, England.
Purpose:
To review the mammographic features of screening interval breast cancers and to compare the tumor size, histologic grade, and lymph node involvement with those in screening-detected and unscreened symptomatic cancers.
Materials And Methods:
Screening mammography was performed in 72,773 women aged 50-64 years. Ninety interval cancers were identified in 89 women. The mammographic and histopathologic features of these cancers were analyzed.
Results:
At review of the screening mammograms, interval cancers were classified into four groups: 51 true-positive, 20 false-negative, seven mammographically occult, and 12 unclassified. The most common missed abnormality in the false-negative cases was architectural distortion. Interval cancers were larger, of higher grade, and more likely to have lymph node involvement than screening-detected tumors and were of similar size, histologic grade, and stage of lymph node involvement as symptomatic tumors.
Conclusion:
Prognosis in interval cancers is similar to that in symptomatic, unscreened tumors and statistically significantly worse than that in screening-detected cancers.