Mammography

Copayments turn older women off to mammography

Quarterly losses balloon at MergeFuji targets mobile mammo marketSiemens allies with software firmNucletron unveils brachytherapy accessoriesMedQuist upgrades speech recognitionART lands first customerKonica wins sole-source contract Emageon taps new CFO

Studies of chest pain patients with conventional 64-slice and dual-source CT add to a growing base of evidence suggesting that CT is well suited to rule out acute coronary syndrome in the emergency room and to identify coronary artery in-stent restenosis.

A new study based on nearly a quarter million mammograms suggests screening mammography with computer-aided detection is more sensitive than double reads. The findings contradict a key study published last year questioning its effectiveness.

Philips Medical Systems has been noticeably absent in digital mammography, at least in the U.S. This could change as early as the second half of 2008 if the FDA approves the computed radiography component of a novel mammography system in development at the Dutch company, a vendor of virtually every other advanced imaging technology.

An analysis of the multicenter results of the Digital Mammography Imaging Screen Trial has found that digital mammography outperforms conventional screen film mammography for women under 50 who have dense breasts.

Zonare ultrasound heads around the worldCarestream single-cassette CRs take holdFDA clears digital mammo workstationViewRay lands $25M

Positive study from Netherlands stands out in finding no difference between conventional and new technology

Magic 3D viewing glasses may prove too good to be true if solution to radiation hike eludes researchers

Hologic targets 2008 release, but other vendors defer, citing clinical questions, regulatory issues, and technological uncertainties

Vendors struggling to keep up with orders look for ways to boost production and beat backlogs

Israeli and U.S. researchers have found that computer aided-detection systems can boost the accuracy of chest radiography for lung cancer, especially when the procedures are performed by inexperienced readers.

Digital tomosynthesis detects more breast masses, better categorizes those masses, and produces lower callback rates than conventional mammography. In a study of symptomatic patients, tomosynthesis was not superior to mammography, but a combination of the two techniques detected more carcinomas than either alone.

Emory University trial results showed that a new technique called stereoscopic digital mammography reduces false positives by 49% and false negatives by 40% in women with an elevated risk of breast cancer. But the technique may have difficulty catching on, as it requires double the images and double the radiation dose compared with conventional digital mammography.

While demand for MR and CT equipment languishes, digital mammography is enjoying a heyday with no end in sight. When the final numbers are tallied, vendors expect to have shipped twice as many full-field digital mammography units in 2007 to customers in the U.S. as in the previous year. And 2009 could be more of the same.

A large prospective screening trial from the University of Pennsylvania compared screen-film mammography, digital mammography, whole-breast ultrasound, and contrast-enhanced MRI in a population of 569 asymptomatic women. In this single-center trial, funded by the National Cancer Institute, the definition of high risk included women with a 25% lifetime risk based on genetic testing or Gail or Claus models and those with a history of cancer in the contralateral breast.

Philips Medical Systems plans to be on the U.S. market with a computed radiography system for mammography in the second half of 2008 and with a flat panel mammography system in the first half of 2009. When approved by the FDA, they will be available as part of a digital platform that can support CR and DR, the first such hybrid ever.

Not since the height of the CT slice wars have vendors said so much about products that were so far from market. They have been talking up breast tomosynthesis for years, adding details with each passing RSNA meeting, whetting the appetite of a marketplace enamored of digital imaging. Looming larger, year after year, until it can no longer be ignored is the question-spoken or unspoken-that begins with the word "when."

Breast tomosynthesis used in the screening setting detects more breast masses, better categorizes those masses, and produces lower callback rates than conventional mammography, according to research presented at the RSNA meeting. Tomosynthesis was not superior to mammography in one study of symptomatic patients, but a combination of the two techniques detected more carcinomas than either alone.

Immune to the effects of the Deficit Reduction Act and impervious to concerns of obsolescence, digital mammography this year will achieve nearly triple-digit growth in the U.S. In the first half of 2007, demand for digital mammography almost doubled with about 770 units sold to U.S. customers compared with 400 in the first half of 2006.

RSNA newcomer Parascript takes aim this week at false positives in computer-aided detection, hoping to convince other vendors that its proprietary image analysis software, proven in fields outside radiology, can do a better job than other mammography CAD systems.

Philips frames R&D at RSNA 2007Toshiba showcases interventional systemVisage, Medicsight partner on CT colonographySiemens launches digital mammo screening unit

A 1996 National Aeronautics and Space Administration report speculated that telemammography could be used to connect neglected rural patients with timely, critical medical expertise-if only an adequate communications infrastructure in these areas could support such an undertaking. NASA went on to predict that global satellite networks then evolving could bring low-cost telecommunications infrastructure connectivity to virtually any location.

Digital mammography is penetrating the marketplace at a rapid rate, with approximately 26% of facilities now having at least one full-field digital mammography system, according to the Mammography Quality Standards Act scorecard.

Every mammogram is different, and every patient is her own control. Mammographers are watching for changes over time. But the digital age has brought with it some challenges. Because each digital mammography vendor uses proprietary processing algorithms, it may be hard to distinguish pathology from actual differences in image quality that can occur when images are scaled up. Everything scales differently.