Assessment Tools and Diagnostic Test
Mammograms are among the top advanced healthcare tools used for cancer treatment. This device is used to scan the breast tissues for the discovery of any abnormality. To attain this function, they use low energy X-rays to screen the breast from multiple angles to give the entire view (Davenport at all, 2011). This makes them very reliable since they examine the whole breast structure and are very sensitive in detecting any abnormality. This allows it to detect cancer at the early stage enabling more damage control.
Besides the general greatness of this tool, it has some slight issues on sensitivity, reliability and predictive values (“Mammogram Accuracy – Accuracy of Mammograms,” 2017). The sensitivity of mammograms is 87%, which was attained from the division of breast cancer cases that were detected in a given population. The estimates were actually between 83 and 95. The absence of the 100% illustrates the existence of some failures in cancer detection. Therefore mammograms should not be fully considered as perfect as it has some failures in detection. The reliability issue arises from the proportion of correct negative results or vice versa. In other words, there is female who get wrong results from the tests as the mimeographs record specificities ranging from 90% – 98%. Technically this means that, for every ten women under test, one of them gets wrong results.
Lastly but not least the positive predictive value issue avail itself on this tool as it depends on both sensitivity and reliability or specificity of the test, and disease prevalence in the group tested. The value measures the correct outcome of the result as per the analysis. Therefore the higher the positive predictive value false results will be lower and vice versa. This also aligns with sensitivity and reliability of the mimeograph. If both attributes are high, the positive predictive value will be high hence satisfactory results (Joy, Penhoet, Petitti & Cancer, 2017).
References
Deavenport, A., Modeste, N., Marshak, H. H., & Neish, C. (2011). Closing the gap in mammogram screening: an experimental intervention among low-income Hispanic women in community health clinics. Health Education & Behavior, 38(5), 452-461.Joy, J., Penhoet, E., Petitti, D., & Cancer, I. (2017). Benefits and Limitations of Mammography. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 4 September 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22311/
Mammogram Accuracy – Accuracy of Mammograms. (2017). Ww5.komen.org. Retrieved 4 September 2017, from https://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/AccuracyofMammograms.html
