Rose SL, et al. - Authors ascertained if the addition of tomosynthesis to mammography improved the screening performance outcomes for breast cancer among women younger than 50 years old. Decreased recall rates were achieved via tomosynthesis in a community setting in the case of patients younger than 50 years old. Furthermore, cancer detection rates exhibited an increase for the subgroup of women with dense breast tissue.

Methods

• From a community-based screening network, screening performance for 59,921 patients (41,542 digital mammography and 18,379 tomosynthesis) younger than 50 years old was obtained between January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015.
• Tomosynthesis was offered if it was available.
• A comparison was performed of the recall, biopsy, and cancer detection rates.
• Using mixed effects regression analysis, rates with screening modality, age, and density as fixed effects and screening site as a random effect were measured.
• Furthermore, the rates for patients with dense breast tissue were determined.

Results

• During this study, model adjusted rates per 1000 screenings with digital mammography were compared with digital mammography plus tomosynthesis, respectively: A decrease was reported in the recall rate from 117 to 108 (difference, -8.3; p=0.003).
• Moreover, the biopsy rate increased from 13.5 to 16.6 (difference, 3.1; p=0.003); and cancer detection rate increased from 1.9 to 2.6 (difference, 0.8; p=0.060).
• It was observed that the model adjusted rates for patients with dense breast tissue were: Recall rate decreased from 135 to 132 (difference, -3.2; p=0.44); biopsy rate increased from 16.0 to 20.5 (difference, 4.5; p=0.004); and cancer detection rate increased from 2.1 to 3.5 (difference, 1.3; p=0.03).