Dr. Rachel Brem and colleagues analyzed the time it took radiologists to interpret screening FFDM mammograms using film-screen priors and compared it to digitized film-screen priors. Time was measured as only being the interpretation process and didn't include dictation or patient/physician communication, the team wrote.
Four radiologists interpreted 100 full-field digital screening mammograms, all of which had comparison analog mammograms that had been taken at least a year earlier and were digitized using a 43-micron film digitizer (Total Look, iCAD, Nashua, NH).
First the FFDM data was interpreted with the digitized prior on a PACS system (DR Systems, San Diego). A month later, the same exams were interpreted using original film-screen mammograms on a display set next to the digital monitors.
Overall, the four readers decreased their reading time by 31% when digitized prior exams were used, with all of the readers showing an improvement when reading with digitized priors.
The study results bode well for improving workflow, according to Brem.
"[The decreased reading time] should allow for more FFDM mammograms to be interpreted in the same amount of time," she wrote.
