This report originally appeared in the May 2009 issue of DOTmed Business News

For more than 30 years, traditional mammography has been the leader in breast imaging and has helped detect breast cancer in hundreds of thousands of patients, helping to save lives in many cases. While other modalities have come along to help detect better and clearer in some instances, mammograms are still the first choice of most doctors and breast imaging centers.

"The best population-based screening exam is still mammography because it works, is efficient, low cost, low dose and you can perform exams on a whole group of patients in a short amount of time," says Carl D'Orsi, Director of Breast Imaging Center at Emory and co-chair of the ACR Breast Imaging Commission. "It's the most tested technique of anything in the world and it is the gold standard to the nth degree and that will remain for a long, long time."



It was nine years ago when GE pioneered digital mammography with the introduction of the first full field digital mammography unit. Of course, the prices kept many away, as did the uncertainty of whether the digital was really that much better.

Digital taking over

The American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) changed the way a lot of people thought. In 2005, they released the results of one of the largest breast cancer screening studies ever performed and it provides a strong starting off point for medical personnel when discussing the differences between film and digital mammograms.

The primary finding of the study was that for the entire population of women studied (49,528 women), digital and film mammography had very similar screening accuracy.

Where digital was deemed better was in women under 50, those with dense breasts, and those pre- or perimenopausal (defined as women who had a last menstrual period within 12 months of their mammograms).

"The study showed that the images were better with digital," says Stamatia Destounis, a doctor at Elizabeth Wende Breast Care, LLC. "The benefit is that we can manipulate the film. So after it is acquired, we can magnify an area, make it darker or lighter, bring something of interest to us in focus and look at it closely. Instead of having a technologist go back and ask for more X-rays, now we can manipulate the existing images and not necessarily have to take more images."

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