Key clinical point: Interval breast cancers (BC) detected between annual mammograms have significantly worse prognostic characteristics than BC detected during mammographic screening.
Major finding: Breast density is significantly associated with the development of an interval cancer (adjusted odds ratio 2.17; P = .003). Interval vs screen-detected BC were more often primary tumor stage II or higher (43% vs 12%; P < .001), regional lymph node stage I or higher (22% vs 12%; P = .003), triple negative (21% vs 6%; P < .001) with high Ki67 proliferation indices (62% vs 38%; P = .002), and significantly more invasive ( P = .007).
Study details: Findings are from a retrospective cohort study including 1232 women diagnosed with BC within 1 year of screening, of which 1136 had screen-detected BC and 96 had interval BC.
Disclosures: This study did not report the source of funding. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Ambinder EB et al. Interval breast cancers versus screen detected breast cancers: A retrospective cohort study. Acad Radiol. 2023 (Feb 3). Doi: 10.1016/j.acra.2023.01.007