Reducing ' probably benign ' assessments in normal mammograms: The role of radiologist experience

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: to investigate the relationship between radiologists' experience in reporting mammograms, their caseloads, and the classification of category ‘3′ or ‘Probably Benign’ on normal mammograms. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 92 board-certified radiologists participated. Self-reported parameters related to experience, including age, years since qualifying as a radiologist, years of experience reading mammograms, number of mammograms read per year, and hours spent reading mammograms per week, were documented. To assess the radiologists' accuracy, "Probably Benign fractions” was calculated by dividing the number of "Probably Benign findings" given by each radiologist in the normal cases by the total number of normal cases Probably Benign fractions were correlated with various factors, such as the radiologists' experience. RESULTS: The results of the statistical analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between radiologist experience and 'Probably Benign' fractions for normal images. Specifically, for normal cases, the number of mammograms read per year (r = −0.29, P = 0.006) and the number of mammograms read over the radiologist's lifetime (r = −0.21, P = 0.049) were both negatively correlated with 'Probably Benign' fractions CONCLUSION: The results indicate that a relationship exists between increased reading volumes and reduced assessments of 'Probably Benign' in normal mammograms. The implications of these findings extend to the effectiveness of screening programs and the recall rates.