ABSTRACT
It was Egan’s original report of 1000 breasts in 634 women (which engendered 15 000 requests for reprints) using standard diagnostic X-ray units and industrial film which gave credibility to the techniques in the USA. Two hundred and forty lesions were malignant of which all but two were correctly coded. Twenty of 435 benign lesions were falsely coded as malignant. Cancers were also detected in 19 breasts without a clinical abnormality. Following his findings, a multi-institutional study was reported in which 1580 breasts were examined radiologically prior to a biopsy for clinical disease (related reference 2). The radiologist was not aware of the clinical findings. The sensitivity was 7.9% and specificity 90.1%.
