THURSDAY, Oct. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Full-field digital mammography (FFDM), along with computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), may provide improved detection of microcalcifications and ductal carcinoma in situ, according to research published in the November issue of Radiology.

Nico Karssemeijer, Ph.D., of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and colleagues analyzed data from 367,600 screening examinations, of which 56,518 were done with FFDM (with CAD available) and 311,082 were done with screen-film mammography (SFM).

In initial screening exams, the researchers found the detection rate to be 0.77 percent with FFDM and 0.62 percent with SFM, which weren't significantly different. In following screenings, detection rates were 0.55 and 0.49 percent, respectively. The recall rate was significantly higher with FFDM in initial and subsequent screenings, with the cases recalled due to microcalcifications alone doubling. FFDM was also associated with an increase in detection of ductal carcinoma in situ.

"Results suggest that improvement of detection with FFDM may be more substantial at initial screenings, which include the youngest women in the screening population," the authors write. "Results indicate that with the FFDM-CAD combination and double reading, the detection is as good as that with SFM, and detection of clustered microcalcifications and ductal carcinoma in situ is improved with FFDM using CAD."

A co-author reported serving as a consultant to R2/Hologic, and MeVis Medical Solutions participated in the project from which this study was initiated.

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