Women Think Breast-Cancer Risk is Higher

Many women think their personal risk of breast cancer is higher than it is, and many women have great faith in mammograms, a U.S. survey finds.

The survey of 397 women who came to an outpatient clinic for screening mammography found 16 percent of the women thought that their personal risk of breast cancer was 50 percent or higher, while the American Cancer Society says the chance of a woman having invasive breast cancer some time during her life is about one in eight.

More than 20 percent of the women agreed with the statement mammograms detect all breast cancers, according to the survey conducted at University of Michigan Health Systems in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Women have high expectations of mammography because patients in general — not specifically women — tend to have a view of all medical tests being yes or no, ‘positive’ or ‘negative,’ said study co-investigator Dr. Marilyn Roubidoux. People assume that if a mammogram can detect cancer the size of a pin, then it can detect all cancers bigger than a pin. The reality is much more complicated than that.

The findings were presented the American Roentgen Ray Society annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada.