Time Trends in Radiologists’ Interpretive Performance at Screening Mammography from the Community-based Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium, 1996–2004

Time Trends in Radiologists’ Interpretive Performance at Screening Mammography from the Community-based Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium, 1996–2004
Laura E. Ichikawa, William E. Barlow, Melissa L. Anderson, Stephen H. Taplin, Berta M. Geller, R. James Brenner for the National Cancer Institute–sponsored Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium
Radiology 2010;256 74-82

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We found an overall improvement in radiologists’ interpretive performance at subsequent screening mammography, 1996–2004, in a large national sample of women aged 40–79 years, with increases in both sensitivity and recall rate and a decrease in specificity

Recall rate and sensitivity for screening mammograms increased, whereas specificity decreased from 1996 to 2004 among women with a prior mammogram. This trend remained after accounting for risk factors. The net effect was an improvement in overall discrimination, a measure of the probability that a mammogram with cancer in the follow-up period has a higher Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System assessment category than does a mammogram without cancer in the follow-up period