Economic issues in screening mammography.

The issues surrounding screening mammography present apparent conflicts: conflicting guidelines for screening; an oversupply of facilities, yet inadequate access to mammography for some groups of women; increased medicolegal vulnerability as participation in screening is promoted; disparate results from studies of cost-effectiveness; wide variations in delivery modes and practice patterns of facilities, yet an evolution toward a single set price for mammography by payers for screening. This review does not claim to offer solutions to these conflicts, rather it attempts to carry forward a discussion of the issues. With these conflicts, screening mammography may be only a microcosm of similar economic issues in general health care delivery. Our health care system has room for variety, if access and quality are improved at an affordable cost. Screening for breast cancer with mammography will not reach its full potential to reduce mortality until many of these issues can be resolved.     

Ductal carcinoma in situ. Implications for screening mammography

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) now represents 20% of all newly diagnosed breast cancers because of increased detection by screening mammography. Twenty year relative survival rates are 97%. Postsurgical and histological studies and recent molecular biological studies indicate that most cases of DCIS will progress to invasive carcinoma if not detected by mammography. Screening mammography studies support the need for annual versus less frequent screenings to detect DCIS before further progression.     

Mobile screening mammography for the corporate customer.

While the concept of mobile imaging services is not new, mobile screening mammography has recently gained a great deal of attention, and several mobile breast screening programs are in operation throughout the United States. This article describes the development of a mobile breast screening program designed to attract corporations' employees as its primary source of participants. The design of the program, corporate concerns and operational issues are discussed as well as the findings of its first year of operation.     

Performance benchmarks for screening mammography

PURPOSE: To retrospectively evaluate the range of performance outcomes of the radiologist in an audit of screening mammography by using a representative sample of U.S. radiologists to allow development of performance benchmarks for screening mammography. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Institutional review board approval was obtained, and study was HIPAA compliant. Informed consent was or was not obtained according to institutional review board guidelines. Data from 188 mammographic facilities and 807 radiologists obtained between 1996 and 2002 were analyzed from six registries from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC). Contributed data included demographic information, clinical findings, mammographic interpretation, and biopsy results. Measurements calculated were positive predictive values (PPVs) from screening mammography (PPV(1)), biopsy recommendation (PPV(2)), biopsy performed (PPV(3)), recall rate, cancer detection rate, mean cancer size, and cancer stage. Radiologist performance data are presented as 50th (median), 10th, 25th, 75th, and 90th percentiles and as graphic presentations by using smoothed curves. RESULTS: There were 2 580 151 screening mammographic studies from 1 117 390 women (age range, <30 to >/=80 years). The respective means and ranges of performance outcomes for the middle 50% of radiologists were as follows: recall rate, 9.8% and 6.4%-13.3%; PPV(1), 4.8% and 3.4%-6.2%; and PPV(2), 24.6% and 18.8%-32.0%. Mean cancer detection rate was 4.7 per 1000, and the mean size of invasive cancers was 13 mm. The range of performance outcomes for the middle 80% of radiologists also was presented. CONCLUSION: Community screening mammographic performance measurements of cancer outcomes for the majority of radiologists in the BCSC surpass performance recommendations. Recall rate for almost half of radiologists, however, is higher than the recommended rate.     

Computer-aided detection for screening mammography

Mammographic film reading is a highly demanding task, particularly in screening programs where the reader must perform a detailed visual search of a large number of images for signs of abnormality that are often subtle or small, and which occur very infrequently. False-negative cases, in which signs of abnormality are missed by a film reader, are known to occur. Computer-aided detection (CAD) systems, which automatically detect potential abnormalities and indicate their locations to the reader, have the capacity to reduce the frequency of such errors by ensuring that all suspicious regions of the images are thoroughly searched and by increasing the weighting attached to subtle signs that may otherwise have been dismissed. CAD systems depend on suites of detection algorithms, but each algorithm has a different sensitivity and specificity and the effect of prompting errors on human performance with CAD is complex. This article is a brief review of CAD for screening mammography; it highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of the approach, and describes some of the methodologies used to evaluate CAD in a clinical setting.     

CAD in screening mammography

OBJECTIVE: The benefit and cost of computer-assisted detection (CAD) mammography screening remains a topic of great interest in breast imaging. Our purpose is to reflect on and interleave two articles in this issue of the AJR that highlight the difficulty in assessing the actual benefit of using CAD from either retrospective or prospective studies. CONCLUSION: This commentary describes the possible benefit and some of the issues associated with the clinical use of current CAD technology while emphasizing the expectation of and need for future improvements in CAD performance.     

Breast cancer screening with mammography: a population-based, randomized trial with mammography as the only screening mode.

A population-based, randomized breast cancer screening project was undertaken using mammography alone. Of 17,447 invited women aged 50-69, 12,765 (73%) attended the screening. On the basis of the screening films, malignancy was suspected in 405 women (3.2%) who were recalled for complete mammography. Additional films showed that the suspicion of malignancy was false in 194 women. The remaining 211 women (1.7%) were referred for clinical and cytological examination. Of these, 159 had surgery. Breast cancer was proved in 97 women, corresponding to a prevalence rate of 7.6/1000. Fifty-three (55%) of the carcinomas were either in situ or invasive with a diameter of less than or equal to 1 cm. Axillary metastases were found in 19 patients (19.6%). Cancers detected at screening were significantly less advanced than those in the control group. There was a remarkably high frequency of tubular carcinoma among cancers detected at screening.     

One-view versus two-view mammography in baseline screening for breast cancer: a review.

Two-view mammography is generally preferred as an initial screening examination because the number of missed carcinomas and false positive results in one-view mammography is considered too large. The present review was performed to assess the difference in screening quality between one- and two-view mammography. Nineteen previous studies were reviewed and differences in sensitivity as well as specificity between two-view and one-view mammography were calculated. The results ranged from -5.7% to 19.4% (median 3.9%), and 2.7% to 36.1% (median 14.8%), respectively, and indicate a higher screening quality of two-view mammography. However, in the studies considered there is a large variation in study population, screening tests used and assessment of disease outcome, which makes the numerical results less conclusive. None of the studies provided adequate information for deciding whether two-view mammography in baseline screening for breast cancer is preferable to one-view mammography. If a screening programme using one-view mammography has already achieved high sensitivity and specificity, the value of an additional craniocaudal view is only marginal.     

Pain during mammography: implications for breast screening programmes

Pain experienced during mammography can deter women from attending for breast cancer screening. Review of the current literature on pain experienced during mammography reveals three main areas of interest: reports of the frequency of pain, identification of predictors of pain and strategies for responding to pain. Implications of this literature for breast screening programmes include the need for appropriate measurements of pain during mammography that are valid for screening populations, a further understanding of organizational factors involved in screening programmes that may be predictors of pain and for the development of valid strategies for responding to pain within breast screening programmes.