Study: Doctors Better Than Mammograms in Detecting Breast Lumps

Physicians and surgeons may be more successful in detecting breast lumps but mammography is better at determining whether lumps are cancerous, according to researchers at the Southampton Breast Unit in England.

Researchers studied diagnostic data for 350 women with possible breast cancer and found that mammography was up to one-third less likely to detect lumps than physicians.

However, mammography was much more effective in determining whether the lumps were benign or cancerous, according to the study presented at the 7th Nottingham International Breast Cancer Conference in the U.K.

General practitioners were able to identify lumps in 78 percent of cases and breast cancer surgeons were able to find 82 percent. Mammography detected lumps in 63 percent of the patients in the study.

"Both general practitioner and breast surgeon clinical examination were more sensitive than mammography in determining if a lump was present," reported Dr. Gavin T. Royle, co-author of the study.

In clinical examinations, general practitioners were only able to make an accurate prediction of malignancy in two out of five instances. Breast surgeons were able to do so in 78 percent of the cases. Mammography was 100 percent successful.

Other Sources: Nottingham International Breast Cancer Meeting