Adding DBT to CEM leads to minimal gains

Allegretto Amerigo Headshot

Tuesday, December 2 | 3:20 p.m.-3:30 p.m. | T7-SSBR06-3 | Room S406A 

Adding digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) to contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) can lead to slightly reduced false-positive recalls, suggest findings to be presented in this session.

Wendie Berg, MD, PhD, from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, will share her team’s findings showing that a combined approach with low-energy, recombined CEM images and DBT reduces the need for unnecessary additional testing brought on by CEM exams alone.

“The additional radiation exposure from adding DBT to CEM needs to be considered but remains within accepted limits,” Berg and colleagues highlighted.

For the study, five breast radiologists reviewed 403 screening CEM exams, of which 68 had malignancies. They observed low-energy images, recombined CEM images, and DBT images to find out how they changed BI-RADS assessments first given on low-energy images. They also recorded newly observed recalled findings.

The study included 340 interpretations of malignant cases, of which 148 were recalled on low-energy images. Adding recombined images led to a sensitivity of 79%. However, the team reported no significant change in cancer detection with DBT added to low-energy plus recombined images (odds ratio [OR], 0.98).

The false-positive recall rate from low-energy images alone was 24.5%, but adding recombined images to low-energy images increased this to 39.6% (p < 0.001). Despite the increase in this recall rate, sensitivity also increased, leading to an increase in the area under the curve (AUC) from 0.61 to 0.77. And while adding DBT to the mix decreased the false-positive recall rate to 34.7% (p < 0.001), it did not move the needle much in terms of AUC (0.77, p < 0.64).

Find out more by attending this session.

Page 1 of 1