Digital Breast Tomosynthesis vs Digital Mammography in Breast Cancer Screening: A Decade of Data

By: Chris Schimpf, MSW
Posted: Friday, November 8, 2024

Digital breast tomosynthesis may be a more effective method of screening for breast cancer than conventional digital mammography, according to the results of a 10-year study published in the journal Radiology. Liane Elizabeth Philpotts, MD, FACR, of Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues found that the practice both increased breast cancer detection rates and significantly lowered rates of advanced cancers, compared with standard digital mammography. In addition, further improvement was observed at incident rounds of screening.

“Digital breast tomosynthesis’s lower recall rate, higher cancer detection rate, and lower rate of advanced cancers is a win, win, win,” said Dr. Philpotts in a Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) press release. “Our results may provide health-care institutions that have not yet switched from digital mammography to digital breast tomosynthesis with the data they need to adopt the newer technology.”

A total of 272,938 screenings for breast cancer were included in the retrospective review, of which 35,544 were performed with digital mammography and 237,394 were performed with digital breast tomosynthesis. The screenings took place at Yale University/Yale–New Haven Health between August 2008 and July 2021, during which 1,407 cancers were detected—142 by digital mammography and 1,265 by digital breast tomosynthesis.

The investigators reported that digital breast tomosynthesis had a lower recall rate (7.2%) than digital mammography (10.6%; P < .001) and a higher cancer detection rate (5.3 vs 4 cancers per 1,000; P = .001). In addition, fewer cancers were advanced at the time of diagnosis with digital breast tomosynthesis than with digital mammography (32.7% vs 43.6%, respectively; P = .04). Finally, incident digital breast tomosynthesis screenings showed a reduction in the mean size of detected invasive cancers, from 1.6 cm to 1.2 cm (P < .001).

Disclosure: Dr. Philpotts reported no conflicts of interest. For full disclosures of the other study authors, visit pubs.rsna.org.

Radiology