Introduction Digitalmammography remains the most commonly used procedure for mammographic screening because it has demonstrated to reduce the mortality rate for breast cancer. But many limitations are recognized, in particular the issue of overlapping imaged tissue that can miss around 20% of breast cancers or can mimic abnormalities, generating false positive results. Tomosynthesis is a three-dimensional examination whose goal is to minimize the effects of structure overlap with improvement in both sensitivity and specificity from mammography. Synthesized digital mammography (Synthesized-DM) is a reconstructed synthetically generated...

Patients selection From September 2013 to September 2014 we began to use the synthesized-DM and the combo mode. A total number of 8201 COMBO studies were performed at our institution in Zaragoza (Spain). The informed consent was offered to all patients. All the studies were performed using a Selenia Dimensions unit (Hologic, USA). Study design We retrospectively selected an enriched sample with 210 patients. All patients underwent both techniques 2D and synthesized DM. The reading modes included standard craniocaudal (CC) and mediolateral-oblique (MLO) views of...

The mean age of our patients was 48.4 y/o (21-88). In our series, 57 patients had histologically proven malignant lesions and 153 patients had benign lesions. The distribution of the tumours according to the histology are shown in this figure. The SE and SP were: 61.4% and 64.05% for 2D-DM; 70.2% and 59.48% for Synthesized-DM, respectively. Significant differences were found regarding SE between Synthesized-DM and 2D-DM: OR 0.88, IC (0.78-0.98). No significant differences were found in SP between both techniques: OR 1.08, IC (0.97-1.31). This...

DISCUSSION The aim of our study was to compare the diagnostic performance of conventional Digital Mammography (2D-DM) and Synthesized Digital Mammography. Currently, digital breast tomosynthesis must be interpreted in conjunction with digital mammography for several reasons. First of all, 2D-DM offers a global view of the breast and allows comparative study with previous exams. In the other hand, it facilitates the detection and interpretation of microcalcifications. However, the use of digital mammography with tomosynthesis is not without limitations.The main limitation of the combo mode is...

Comparison of two-dimensional synthesized mammograms versus original digital mammograms alone and in combination with tomosynthesis images. Radiology. 2014 Jun;271(3):664-71. Zuley ML, Guo B, Catullo VJ, Chough DM, Kelly AE, Lu AH et al. Comparison of Digital Mammography Alone and Digital Mammography Plus Tomosynthesis in a Population-based Screening Program. Per Skaane,MD, PhD, Andriy I. Bandos,PhD, Randi Gullien,RT, Ellen B. Eben,MD, Ulrika Ekseth,MD et al.