Digital mammography for screening and diagnosis of breast cancer: an overview.
Digital mammography is an emerging technique for the evaluation of the breast. Unless the low spatial resolution, the systems performs very well in diagnostic imaging because they improve lesion conspicuity through their better efficiency of absorption of x-ray photons and a linear response over a wide range of radiation intensities and the inherent high contrast resolution. With digital imaging, separation of the process of x-ray detection from the image display and storage is possible and makes optimization of each of these steps possible. In this regard, applying image processing can have a high impact on image quality. Different clinical trials are available to evaluate the accuracy of digital mammography. To control the image quality, dedicated quality parameters are developed and approved by the European Commission. However, unless the experience in diagnostic imaging with digital mammography, introduction in a screening environment still has difficulties. As telemammography is an advantage of digital imaging, practical implementation of different imaging systems in one large screening network is not solved yet. The radiologist also must be aware with the different kind of images coming from the different systems. The disadvantage of digital imaging is the high cost and the sharing of digital images with other facilities which not have a similar technology. Future technology is tomosynthesis, dual energy mammography and cone beam CT of the breast.
Van Ongeval
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Department of Radiology, KULeuven, UZ Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium.
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003626:Data Display; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D008327:Mammography / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D011873:Radiology Information Systems