3-D mammography increased breast cancer detection rates by 27 percent

By Vera Viner

While many today are trying to prevent breast cancer from occurring, the rate of diagnosis is still at a steady rate of one in eight women and doesn’t seem to be falling anytime soon. New research, however, has found ways that breast cancer can be detected at a 27 percent higher rate, according to Medpage Today.

The new process includes using 3-D mammography with standard breast imaging procedures and the researchers found that detection increased from about 6 per 1,000 patients undergoing the imaging test to 8 per 1,000 exams. Three-dimensional imaging also decreased false positives by 15 percent. The results were published in the latest edition of Radiology, an online magazine.

The study was geared at analyzing cancer detection rates with tomosynthesis – a high-resolution, limited angle imaging test – as well as figuring out the false positive rate and the types of cancers that can be found through this imaging method.

“The overall actual number of women recalled as a result of arbitration was larger for those initially assigned a positive score at mammography plus tomosynthesis,” researchers from the University of Oslo in Norway wrote in their report. “However, the concordant increase in the detection of 24 additional cancers resulted in a similar positive predictive value for the cases ultimately recalled for arbitration.”

More than 12,000 women were followed in this study to determine the differences between 2D mammography and tomosynthesis. Now that more novel studies have been performed and new devices incorporated into the healthcare sphere, there is more potential for tomosynthesis, according to Medical News Today. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently approved the clinical use of tomosynthesis.

However, the news source outlined one particular challenge with different imaging techniques, which is the fact that it is performed as a separate procedure and requires additional technical and specialty resources.

Instead of spending time and resources on detecting this disease at higher rates, it may be more beneficial for all in the healthcare sphere – providers, health insurance companies, employers and patients – to prevent the disease from harming the lives of women around the world. With the breast cancer vaccine, it is possible that this condition may no longer play such a pivotal role in affecting one half of the population.