ABSTRACT
Many randomized controlled trials have indicated that routine screen-film mammography can significantly reduce breast cancer mortality. Mammographic screening began in the mid-1980s. Since then, it has been observed that approximately 39.6% fewer women die every year due to breast cancer (range of mortality reduction over six models was 29.4%–54%) (Hendrick and Helvie 2011). For the 50-year period previous to this, the mortality rate due to breast cancer was unchanged. In the past decade, the development of full-field digital mammography, using either amorphous-Si or amorphous-Se detectors, has come to
fruition. Recently, a multi-institutional clinical study funded by the American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) involving 50,000 subjects was conducted to compare performance with screen-film and digital mammography (Pisano et al. 2005). The results of this study suggested that digital mammography can provide improved performance in certain subgroups of women, such as women aged less than 50 years, at pre-or perimenopausal stages, and with dense breast tissue. Another benefit in the development of digital mammography was that the detectors developed for digital mammography could be used in dedicated breast computer tomography (CT) systems with some modification.
