Strategies for improvement of population based breast cancer screening

Breast cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer in women. While breast cancer is often detected during the screening process, many women are wrongfully referred to a specialist, which results in unnecessary stress for these women.

In this dissertation, methods were developed to improve the accuracy of breast cancer screening to increase the number of necessary referrals and reduce the number of unnecessary ones. The most accurate results are obtained when an image is evaluated by two radiologists when the second is not aware of the diagnosis made by the first. If one radiologist does not make a cancer diagnosis and the other doubts whether a cancer diagnosis can be made, a third radiologist will be asked to assess the image and decide whether a referral is warranted.