The Oregon health insurer that had planned to eliminate reimbursement for Computer-Aided Detection, commonly used in mammography, has changed its policy. According to the American College of Radiology, ODS Companies of Portland will continue to pay for CAD.

The original policy decision, slated to take effect July 22, 2007, was based on research in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that CAD did not clearly improve the detection of breast cancer. The research was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and published April 5, 2007. The study was also reported in DOTmed News .

"Upon further review of the literature in this area and further analysis of the New England Journal study, we have decided to hold off on disallowing CAD for mammography for the time being. Therefore ODS will continue to cover CAD for screening mammography," ODS Medical Director Csaba Mera, MD wrote in a July 18, 2007 letter to providers.

In April 2007, in response to the NEJM publication, the American College of Radiology (ACR) stated that the decreased accuracy of mammography when using CAD was due to increased false positives, not to fewer cancers being detected. The study was designed in such a way that it was impossible to determine how many cancers would have been missed without the use of CAD, according to ACR.

ACR noted: "Clearly, CAD is not a substitute for human interpretation, and those using this tool must use it properly, as an adjunct to, rather than a replacement for, careful mammographic evaluation. Vendors also should strive to continue to improve the performance of CAD systems. Meanwhile, there is a fair amount of evidence outside the current study to suggest that, when properly used, CAD may indeed be worthwhile and it seems unwarranted to consider abandoning this potentially valuable tool at this time."

It appears that the insurer now agrees.

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