Recall Rate in Screening Mammography, What is Optimal?

Recall rate is defined as the percentage of screening mammography for which further work up is recommended. As the recall rate increases, sensivity is increased but specificity and positive predictive value are decreased. It is a trade off between sensivity and specificity."nIndeed in all the women recalled, a very few cancer patients were diagnosed at the expence of an increased number of procedures for a large population of the non-cancerous group and the associated cost, time and anxiety."nThe purpose of this presentation is to review the main criteria for measured performance of screening mammography, the role of recall rate as a surrogate measure and discussing the target or optimal recall rate.