Monday, December 2 | 8:30 a.m.-8:40 a.m. | M1-SSBR03-4 | S404
Audience members in this session will find out how breast ultrasound compares to digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) in supplemental breast screening.
In her presentation, Rashmi Sudhir, MBBS, from Apollo Hospitals in Hyderabad, India, will discuss her team’s research highlighting ultrasound’s effectiveness over DBT in this area, albeit with lower specificity.
The researchers studied the performance of both modalities in a screening setting and included women with dense breasts (American College of Radiology category C and D) and negative mammograms.
The study included 4,430 women screened for breast cancer, of whom 2,120 had dense breasts. Among the women with dense breasts, 97 had positive findings on screening mammograms. The remaining 2,023 women who had dense breasts and negative mammograms underwent additional screening with breast ultrasound and DBT.
Supplemental screening detected 14 additional cancers, with a cancer detection rate of 6.9 per 1,000 women. Ultrasound found more cancers than DBT, with a cancer detection rate of 5.9 per 1,000 compared with 2.9 per 1,000 for women with dense breasts and negative findings at screening mammograms.
Additionally, ultrasound achieved higher sensitivity and negative predictive value and comparable positive predictive value when compared with DBT. However, DBT demonstrated superiority in terms of specificity (51.3% vs. 9.3%) and overall accuracy (45.6% vs. 28%).
The researchers noted that with these results in mind, ultrasound can be a suitable, radiation-free substitute for supplemental DBT in areas where access to the latter may be limited.
Learn more by attending this session.
