A three-dimensional breast-screening system can detect many more cancers than traditional mammography, researchers reported yesterday.
Trials of tomosynthesis have been under way in Sweden.
The technique uses multiple, thin x-ray images to create a three-dimensional image of the breast. Developers say it uses lower radiation doses than traditional mammography.
Some 7,500 women have so far taken part in the first part of a study of the technique.
Researchers said women find it more comfortable than the traditional screening technique.
They say the study has not yet established the rate of over diagnosis from the treatment.
Researchers Sophia Zackrisson and Kristina Lång, of Skåne University Hospital in Malmö and researchers at Lund Universit, said: “We see a change as inevitable. Breast tomosynthesis will be introduced, it is just a question of when and on what scale.”
Ms Zackrisson said: “We see five to ten years from now as a possible time-frame for the large-scale introduction of the technique.
“There is also an aspiration for more personalised screening, and breast tomosynthesis could therefore be one of several methods used.”
Performance of one-view breast tomosynthesis as a stand-alone breast cancer screening modality: results from the Malmö Breast Tomosynthesis Screening Trial, a population-based study European Radiology 6 May 2015; doi: 10.1007/s00330-015-3803-3 [abstract]
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