Recall Rate of Opportunistic Screening Mammography in a University Referral Breast Center in Iran

Background No information has been published on the effectiveness of digital non-diagnostic opportunistic screening mammography in Iran that is measured by recall rate as one of its indices. Objectives In this longitudinal study, we measured recall rate of non-diagnostic mammography at a tertiary referral university hospital and made a comparison with reported international data. Methods We examined 9395 digital mammograms performed in 2014 - 2015 from which, 2930 were the first-time and 6465 were subsequent mammography. The patients were referred to the university hospital by their clinicians during annual check-ups while none of them had any chief complaint. The mean age was 49 years. We calculated recall rate, sensitivity, specificity, and cancer detection rate. Results Breast cancer was diagnosed in 80 patients. Recall rates were 29% for the first-time and 22% for subsequent mammography, and the overall rate of cancer incidence was 8.5 per 1000 mammograms (80/9395) with specificity of 75.9%, sensitivity of 97.5%, PPV of 3.4%, and NPV of 99%. Conclusions The recall rate was much higher in this setting than the acceptable range reported in literature. However, the sensitivity and detection rate were higher; thus, the higher recall rate could be due to some differences in the patient population such as being at younger ages and higher risks.