Mammography. An aid or distractor in diagnosis?

A retrospective analysis of 155 mammograms has indicated the value of this procedure even with simple and inexpensive equipment. In women with a discrete mass requiring biopsy, mammography combined with clinical findings predicted with 100% confidence over half the cancers diagnosed. When both X-ray and clinical findings suggested a benign lump, only one in nine was a carcinoma. In the one-third of patients in whom signs and X-ray findings were in conflict or equivocal, the malignancy rate was about one in three. In women with breast signs or symptoms, but without discrete mass and with a "benign" mammography report, no cancer has been found in follow up for from 12 months to seven years.