Question
What is the likelihood of the overdiagnosis of breast cancer in women older than 70 years after screening?
Conclusion
Overdiagnosis — the identification of, in this case, breast cancer, that would not have caused symptoms in a person’s lifetime — seems to increase with age. In this study, the overdiagnosis rate was 31% for women ages 70 to 74 years. The rate of overdiagnosis increased with age: 47% for women 75 to 84 years and 51% for women who were screened and found to be positive over age 85.