Technology evaluation center assessment synopsis: full-field digital mammography

Full-field digital mammography (FFDM) is proposed as an alternative to screen-film mammography (SFM). The ability to separate and optimize the acquisition, storage, and display of images may allow greater visualization of breast cancers at equal or lower radiation doses, especially in younger women and those with denser breasts. This is a synopsis of a systematic review by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association Technology Evaluation Center. This updated systematic review primarily incorporated the results of the ACR Imaging Network(R) Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST), which provided results on 42,760 asymptomatic women who underwent both FFDM and SFM and showed with reasonable certainty that there was no difference in the accuracy of the 2 modalities for asymptomatic women in general, with some advantages of FFDM in certain subgroups. There were no strong, new studies on the use of digital mammography compared with film mammography in a diagnostic population. However, the DMIST results indicated that tumors detected by FFDM, but not by SFM, were likely to be invasive carcinomas or medium-grade to high-grade ductal carcinoma in situ. On the basis of the suppositions that these are the cancers of greatest interest and the ones more likely to be found in a diagnostic population and that the diagnostic population may be younger on average than the screening population, it was concluded that there is sufficient evidence to support the use of FFDM for diagnostic purposes.