Contrast-Enhanced Mammography: A Scientific Review

Area of Science:

• Radiology
• Oncology
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) has evolved significantly since its introduction.
• Publication rates have surged, particularly after commercialization and in the last five years, indicating growing interest and research.
• Early research highlighted CEM's ability to detect cancers not visible on conventional mammography.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an overview of CEM and review existing literature on its performance.
• To assess the current evidence base for CEM's diagnostic capabilities.
• To identify areas for future research in CEM applications.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of published studies on contrast-enhanced mammography.
• Analysis of studies comparing CEM with mammography and contrast-enhanced MRI.
• Inclusion of retrospective reviews and emerging research on high-risk and dense breast screening.

Main Results:

• CEM demonstrates superior cancer detection rates compared to mammography alone.
• Studies comparing CEM with contrast-enhanced MRI show similar sensitivity and accuracy, though with some inter-study variability.
• Retrospective reviews confirm CEM's utility in clinical diagnosis.
• Emerging data suggests CEM outperforms mammography in screening high-risk and dense breasts.

Conclusions:

• Contrast-enhanced mammography is a clinically valuable tool for breast cancer detection.
• CEM shows comparable performance to MRI in many scenarios.
• Further prospective studies, particularly large-scale screening trials, are essential to fully establish CEM's role and optimize its use, especially against MRI.