Interval Cancers Down With Digital Breast Tomosynthesis

WEDNESDAY, April 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Women undergoing screening with digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) have a lower interval cancer rate compared with those screened with digital mammography (DM) alone, according to a study published online April 6 in Radiology.

Kristin Johnson, M.D., from Skåne University Hospital in Malmö, Sweden, and colleagues compared interval cancer rates and tumor characteristics in DBT screening to those in a population screened with DM. Data were included for 14,848 women screened with DBT and DM in the prospective population-based Malmö Breast Tomosynthesis Screening Trial (MBTST) between January 2010 and February 2015. A total of 13,369 women in the trial were compared to a matched control group of 26,738 women of the same age and screening occasion screened with DM at the same center.

The researchers found that the interval cancer rate was 1.6 per 1,000 screened women in the MBTST compared with 2.8 per 1,000 screened women in the control group (conditional odds ratio, 0.6). In general, high Ki-67 status was seen in invasive interval cancers in the MBTST and control groups (63 and 75 percent, respectively), while the proportions of luminal A-like subtype were low (26 and 17 percent, respectively).

“One could speculate that some of the additional cancers detected in DBT screening would have been diagnosed as interval cancers if not detected by DBT,” Johnson said in a statement.

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the medical device, medical technology, and publishing industries.

Abstract/Full Text

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