As a result of this new 10-year study, it was found out that screening for breast cancer with DBT helped to increase the rate of cancer detections and, at the same time, the rate of the advanced cancer was reduced as compared to conventional 2D digital mammography.
All the above-mentioned findings were printed in Radiology.
Mammography is regarded as the gold standard screening modality for breast cancer in the average risk women.
DBT is developed over the traditional mammography technology that integrates two images of the breast taken from different directions to form three dimensional pictures. Research conducted on DBT has established the results showing that DBT has a higher cancer detection rate than digital mammography.
“This is the first study to contrast DBT-detected, 10 years of data with cancers detected through digital mammography,” added co-author Jaskirandeep Kaur Grewal, PA-C., ex-student and current Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program student.
In the retrospective study, Dr. Philpotts and the team of the researchers reviewed subsequent cancer cases identified by screening mammography for 13 consecutive years in Yale University/Yale-New Haven Health. The dataset contained 10 years of DBT studies that used at the Yale facilities starting from 2011 and the three years of the digital mammographic studies.
The patients, for the purpose of this study, were 272,938 screening mammogram examinations, of which 35,544 was performed using digital mammography and 237,394 used DBT.Overall 1,407 invasive cancers were identified of which 142 were through digital mammography and 1,265 through digital breast tomosynthesis.
The issue of overdiagnosis has been of great concern especially with regards to mammography screening. This simply means that the cancers that are discovered are not real and may not be of health concern to the patient if they were to remain undiagnosed for some time.
Respectively, digital mammography and DBT identified different subtypes and tumour grades with equal efficiency, said Dr. Philpotts. Invasive cancers to ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) ratio was equal between the two modalities.
She said ‘Both DM and DBT SM identified similar types of cancers but at a different stage, ’This means that higher stage aggressive cancers were detected using DBT than digital mammography.
Higher cancer detection rate and lower rate of advanced cancers is also an added advantage for DBT over recall mammography, according to Philpotts.”I believe this data will help in the discussion of overdiagnosis to show that DBT is not over diagnosing the cancers instead it is identifying the bad apples early.
According to Dr. Philpotts more longitudinal data studies are required to determine evaluative use of DBT in screening results. ‘These observations contribute to the body of knowledge regarding cancer detection with DBT and validates its role in screening mammography in the USA and worldwide,’ Dr Philpotts added.
It may be useful for health care institutions which have not changed from digital mammography to DBT to make the change after reading our findings.
Reference:
10-year study shows tomosynthesis improves breast cancer detection https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-year-tomosynthesis-breast-cancer.html
