Jacky Luiten

Recall and outcome of screen‐detected microcalcifications of mammography screening | 71 5 Figure 5.1 Flowchart of the study population. * The screening program requires women to ‘opt‐out’ of mammography screening and/or use of their data. Trends in recall of suspicious microcalcifications Of the 817,656 women who underwent screening examinations, 3556 (0.4%) were recalled because of microcalcifications. The absolute number of women recalled with microcalcification abnormalities increased from 51 in 1997‐1998 (0.1% of 48,721 screening examinations) to 680 in 2015‐2016 (0.5% of 131,757 screening examinations (Table 5.2). The trend in proportion of recalls for microcalcifications was very similar to the trend for recalls overall, with an increase from 0.2% (95% CI: 0.1%‐0.3%; 17/9602) for initial screening examinations in 1997‐1998 to 1.3% (95% CI: 1.1%‐1.4%; 179/220) in 2015‐2016 (Table 5.2) (SFM period vs. FFDM period, p< 0.001). Subsequent screening examinations showed a similar pattern but with substantially smaller proportions.