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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • The false negative rate is also quite high. It will miss about 1 in 5 women with cancer. The reality is mammography is just not all that powerful as a screening tool. That’s why the criteria for who gets screened and how often has been tailored to try and ensure the benefits outweigh the risks. Although it is an ongoing debate in the medical community to determine just exactly what those criteria should be.



  • It’s a common problem in diagnostics and it’s why mammograms aren’t recommended to women under 40.

    Let’s say you have 10,000 patients. 10 have cancer or a precancerous lesion. Your test may be able to identify all 10 of those patients. However, if it has a false positive rate of 5% that’s around 500 patients who will now get biopsies and potentially surgery that they don’t actually need. Those follow up procedures carry their own risks and harms for those 500 patients. In total, that harm may outweigh the benefit of an earlier diagnosis in those 10 patients who have cancer.


  • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.mltoScience Memes@mander.xyzBreast Cancer
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    2 months ago

    Unfortunately AI models like this one often never make it to the clinic. The model could be impressive enough to identify 100% of cases that will develop breast cancer. However if it has a false positive rate of say 5% it’s use may actually create more harm than it intends to prevent.