FFDM Breast Cancer Screening Combined with 3D ABUS to Reduce the Incidence of Interval Cancer

The results of a Swedish study have shown that the addition of 3D Automated Breast Ultrasound (ABUS) to a Full-Field Digital Mammography (FFDM) screening program could reduce the likelihood of interval cancers.

Interval breast cancer cases are those cancers that are found within one year after a women undergoes a mammographic screening that has resulted in normal findings.

The researchers from the Unilabs Mammography Capio St Goran Hospital (Stockholm, Sweden) enrolled 1,675 asymptomatic women who took part in a service-screening program between November 2010 and February 2012. The women underwent a visual mammographic assessment and had more than 50% density in their breasts. As a next step, the researchers acquired and reviewed bilateral ABUS scans together with double-read two-view FFDM screening.

The study was published as a poster in the European Society of Radiology’s annual European Congress of Radiology (ECR 2016) in Vienna, Austria.

By combined mammography service screening using bilateral ABUS scans with double-read two-view FFDM, the researchers were able to identify five women with invasive ductal estrogen and progesterone-positive interval cancers. All these women presented with a palpable breast lump. Three of the women were aged between 40 and 49.

The researchers concluded that the addition of bilateral ABUS scanning to a standard mammography-screening program could be useful for bringing down the number of interval cancers, but that further research was necessary.

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Unilabs Mammography Capio St Goran Hospital