title: Digital mammographic screening in Japan.
abstract: We describe the current status of mammographic screening and investigate how digital mammography is used in screening in Japan. Despite the widespread use of digital mammographic equipment, the mammographic screening rate for invited women is very low. In the majority of cases, digital hard copy images are read for screening. Soft-copy reading of digital mammography is not widely used, because of the difficulty of handling large amounts of CR data, the cost of workstations with 5 M LCD monitors, and the loading of full-field digital mammography on the mobile unit. Digital mammography has a number of advantages and has increasingly replaced conventional film-screen mammography, becoming the gold standard in combination with soft-copy reading in screening settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiological Technology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Japan. tisibasi@mail.tains.tohoku.ac.jp
authors.forename: Tadashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ishibashi
authors.forename: Yusuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kawasumi
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sai
authors.forename: Takayoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uematsu
authors.forename: Nachiko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Uchiyama
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008327:Mammography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods