Objective: To evaluate the clinical value of combining one-view mammography (cranio-caudal, CC) with the complementary view tomosynthesis (mediolateral-oblique, MLO) in comparison to standard two-view mammography (MX) in terms of both lesion detection and characterization.
Methods: A free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) experiment was conducted independently by six breast radiologists, obtaining data from 463 breasts of 250 patients. Differences in mean lesion detection fraction (LDF) and mean lesion characterization fraction (LCF) were analysed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare clinical performance of the combination of techniques to standard two-view digital mammography.
Results: The 463 cases (breasts) reviewed included 258 with one to three lesions each, and 205 with no lesions. The 258 cases with lesions included 77 cancers in 68 breasts and 271 benign lesions to give a total of 348 proven lesions. The combination, DBT(MLO)+MX(CC), was superior to MX (CC+MLO) in both lesion detection (LDF) and lesion characterization (LCF) overall and for benign lesions. DBT(MLO)+MX(CC) was non-inferior to two-view MX for malignant lesions.
Conclusions: This study shows that readers' capabilities in detecting and characterizing breast lesions are improved by combining single-view digital breast tomosynthesis and single-view mammography compared to two-view digital mammography.
Key points: • Digital breast tomosynthesis is becoming adopted as an adjunct to mammography (MX) • DBT (MLO) +MX (CC) is superior to MX (CC+MLO) in lesion detection (overall and benign lesions) • DBT (MLO) +MX (CC) is non-inferior to MX (CC+MLO) in cancer detection • DBT (MLO) +MX (CC) is superior to MX (CC+MLO) in lesion characterization (overall and benign lesions) • DBT (MLO) +MX (CC) is non-inferior to MX (CC+MLO) in characterization of malignant lesions.