3D Digital Breast Tomosynthesis Detects More Invasive Breast Tumors Than 2D Digital Mammography

In community-based radiology practice, mammography screening with three-dimensional (3D) digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) was shown to yield lower recall rates, an increased overall cancer detection rate, and an increased detection rate for invasive cancer compared with 2D digital mammography (DM).

In the largest report to date, researchers from Washington Radiology Associates, PC (Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland, USA), conducted a study of more than 59,000 patients. The findings were remarkable: an increase in the detection rate for cancer overall of 28.6% and a 43.8% increase in recognizing invasive tumors in patients screened with 3D DBT vs. 2D DM.


“We observed a significant increase in the detection rate for cancer overall and an even greater increase in the detection rate for invasive cancer,” said Dr. Julianne Greenberg, corresponding author of the study. “Our results may be a bellwether for the impact of tomosynthesis on population-based breast cancer screening.”

The study was published online June 11, 2014, in the American Journal of Roentgenology.

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