Technical quality control in mammography screening: first results in Belgium

In this paper the first results of the application in Belgium of the European protocol for the technical quality control of mammography screening are presented. Twelve mammography screening units were submitted to an acceptance test: one fourth complied with the criteria after a second visit. A daily quality control procedure has been run since eighteen months. The most important detected problems are given and discussed. The European Commission, in the framework of "Europe Against Cancer", recently published the "European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Mammography Screening" (1). In another contribution (2), a brief overview of the important appendix "European Protocol for the Quality Control of the Technical Aspects of Mammography Screening" was given. In this paper the first results for the application of this protocol in Belgium are presented.