A few critics do not think mammography is effective in finding tumors, not to mention the mammogram radiation risks. In a Swedish study, 70% of women had false positive tumors. This was not a small sampling. The study was performed taking into account over 60,000 women. The problem with false positive is not only they cause financial strain and emotional stress, but they also result in way too many unnecessary biopsies. Statistics show that 70-80% of mammograms that show positive are not cancer.
The other problem with Mammograms is they also miss a high number of tumors, or what is referred to as “false negatives”. In his book, “The Politics of Cancer,” Samuel S. Epstein, says that in females 40 to 49 years old, one out of four cancer cases doesn’t show up on a mammogram.
The NCI (National Cancer Institute) figures that among women between the ages of 40 and 49, the false negative is about 4%, which is even greater. National Institutes of Health spokespeople claim that about 10% of malignant tumors are not detected in mammograms of women over 50 years of age. Other studies have concluded that breast tissue in younger women is denser and the detection of tumors is much more difficult. This is the reason that false negatives are two times as likely to occur with premenopausal mammograms.