August 29, 2007 - Results of the first large scale study comparing the results of a particular digital mammography technology (Hologic Selenia) to women screened with film, were recently published in the August 2007 issue of European Radiology, comparing cancer detection and recall rates of 18,239 women screened with a Hologic Selenia digital mammography system to the results of 324,763 women screened with screen-film technology over a two year period.
The purpose of the study was to compare the performance of full-field digital mammography (FFDM) with soft-copy reading to screen film mammography (SFM) used during the first prevalent 2-year round of population-based screening.
A total of 18,239 women aged 50– 69 years were screened with FFDM as part of the Norwegian Breast Cancer Screening Programme (NBCSP). Process indicators were compared to data from 324,763 women screened with SFM using the common national database of the NBCSP. The cancer detection rates were 0.77% (140/18,239) for FFDM and 0.65% (2,105/324,763) for SFM (p = 0.058).
For ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) alone, the results were: FFDM 0.21% (38/18,239) compared to SFM 0.11% (343/324,763) (p
No statistically significant differences were recorded concerning histological morphology, tumor size, or lymph node involvement. In conclusion FFDM had a significantly higher detection rate for DCIS than SFM. For invasive cancers no difference was seen. FFDM also had a significantly higher PPV and a significantly lower technical recall rate.
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