Digital mammography and tomosynthesis for breast cancer diagnosis

Mammography is one of the most common X-ray examinations although it is well-known that the anatomical background of the breast is the main obstacle when it comes to detection of breast lesions with this method. Tomosynthesis is a three-dimensional radiographic technique which, to a large extent, can suppress the confounding effect of the anatomical background. Tomosynthesis is a strong competitor to mammography both for screening and clinical examinations.

This paper gives a description of digital mammography (DM) and breast tomosynthesis (BT). Relevant studies exploring the possibilities of BT from a technical and clinical point of view, in comparison with DM, are presented. The reader will learn about the concept of BT as well as its advantages compared with DM. The review highlights both diagnostic and clinical aspects of BT as well as the challenges that remain before BT can be fully incorporated in clinical breast cancer imaging and potentially in screening.

BT has the potential to considerably improve breast cancer diagnostics and offers advantages to the existing techniques. It has applications both for clinical breast cancer imaging as well as for screening purposes. The true potential of BT in both fields remains to be further evaluated in clinical trials.