DBT and MRI are superior to DM and US in the preoperative assessment of breast tumour size. DBT seems to improve the accuracy of DM, although MRI remains the most accurate imaging modality for breast cancer extension.
Background/aim
The Trento screening program transitioned to digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) screening based on evidence that DBT improves breast cancer (BC) detection compared to mammography; an evaluation of the transition to DBT is reported in this pilot study.
Methods
Prospective implementation of DBT screening included women aged ≥50 years who attended the Trento program for biennial screening. DBT screening included DBT acquisitions with synthesized 2D-images. A historical cohort of women who attended the program (January 2013–October 2014) and received digital mammography (DM) provided a comparison group. Independent double-reading (with a third arbitrating read for discordance) was used for DBT and DM screening. Screening outcomes included
cancer detection rate
(CDR/1000 screens), percentage of screens recalled to assessment (recall%),
interval cancer rate
(ICR/1000 screens) at 2-year follow-up, and screening sensitivity. Rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) examined outcomes for DBT versus DM screening.
Results
From women aged 50–69 years who accepted an invitation to screening (October 2014–October 2016) 46,343 comprised the DBT-screened group: amongst these 402 BCs (includes 50 ductal carcinoma in-situ (DCIS)) were detected (CDR 8.67/1000), whereas 205 BCs (includes 33 DCIS) were detected amongst 37,436 DM screens (CDR 5.48/1000) [RR for CDR:1.58 (1.34–1.87)]. Recall% was lower for DBT (2.55%) than DM (3.21%) [RR:0.79 (0.73–0.86)]. Compared to DM, DBT screening increased CDR for stage I-II BC, for all tumour size and grade categories, and for node-negative BC, but did not increase CDR for DCIS. Estimated ICR for DBT was 1.1/1000 whereas ICR for DM was 1.36/1000 [RR:0.81 (0.55–1.19)]. Screening sensitivity was 88.74% for DBT versus 80.08% for DM [RR:1.11 (0.94–1.31)].
Conclusion
DBT significantly improved early-detection measures but did not significantly reduce ICR (relative to DM screening), suggesting that it could add benefit as well as adding over-detection in population BC screening.
This meta-analysis shows a higher diagnostic performance of MRI compared with that of galactography in the detection of any kind of lesion in patients with pathologic nipple discharge. Moreover, high sensitivity and very high specificity for cancer by MRI could be confirmed in this clinical setting. If mammography and ultrasound are negative, MRI should be preferred over galactography for further evaluation.
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