title: Assessing the effect of a true-positive recall case in screening mammography: does perceptual priming alter radiologists' performance?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To measure the effect of the insertion of less-difficult malignant cases on subsequent breast cancer detection by breast imaging radiologists.
  
  
  METHODS
  The research comprises two studies. Study 1: 8 radiologists read 2 sets of images each consisting of 40 mammographic cases. Set A contained four abnormal cases, and Set B contained six abnormal cases, including two priming cases (less difficult malignancies) placed at intervals of three and five subsequent cases before a subtle cancer. Study 2: 16 radiologists read a third condition of the same cases, known as Set C, containing six abnormal cases and two priming cases immediately preceding the subtle cancer cases. The readers were asked to localize malignancies and give confidence ratings on decisions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although not significant, a decrease in performance was observed in Set B compared with in Set A. There was a significant increase in the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) area under the curve (z = -2.532; p = 0.0114) and location sensitivity (z = -2.128; p = 0.0333) between the first and second halves of Set A and a marginal improvement in jackknife free-response ROC figure of merit (z = -1.89; p = 0.0587) between the first and second halves of Set B. In Study 2, Set C yielded no significant differences between the two halves of the study.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall findings show no evidence that priming with lower difficulty malignant cases affects the detection of higher difficulty cancers; however, performance may decrease with priming.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This research suggests that inserting additional malignant cases in screening mammography sets as an audit tool may potentially lead to a decrease in performance of experienced breast radiologists.
authors.affiliation: 1 Medical Imaging Optimisation and Perception Group (MIOPeG), Discipline of Medical Radiation Sciences, Lidcombe, Faculty of Health Science, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Mello-Thoms
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Brennan
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: McEntee
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Evanoff
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pietrzyk
authors.forename: W M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Reed
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003951:Diagnostic Errors / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography / Q000592:standards*; D011939:Mental Recall; D010465:Perception; D012372:ROC Curve; D060865:Repetition Priming; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis