Breast Cancer Screening In Case Study Pisano and colleagues (2006) compared the performance of digital to film mammography for breast cancer screening. Now assume that the sensitivity and specificity of digital mammography is 85% and 95% respectively, the sensitivity and specificity of film mammography is 55% and 85% respectively, and that 0.03% of women below the age of 50 have breast cancer, and 12% of symptomatic women have breast cancer. QUESTIONS
1. How successful is film mammography in identifying women with breast cancer?
2. How successful is film mammography in correctly ruling out the disease in women without breast cancer?
3. Of all those without breast cancer, what percent will incorrectly test positive (false positives)?
4. Suppose that you screened a population of 100,000 women under the age of 50 using both the digital and film mammogram. How confident would a women who tests positive or negative be that she has breast cancer?
5. Suppose that you screened 1,000 symptomatic women under the age of 50 using digital mammography. How confident could these women be in a positive or negative test result?
6. Find a similar example the past few years or so from the internet. Make a short assessment on the background, impact, outcome, lessons, and preventive measures?