Efficiency of the detection and diagnosis of calcification in breast lesions by digital breast tomosynthesis and full-field digital mammography / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To compare and analyze the calcification characteristics and diagnostic efficiency of different breast lesion types using digtal breast tomosynthesis (DBT) and full-field digital mammography (FFDM).Methods:Totally 1 263 patients who underwent both DBT and FFDM at the same time from January 2015 to December 2018 in Dahua Hospital, Xuhui district, Shanghai were analyzed retrospectively. Benign and malignant calcification should be confirmed by pathology or a follow-up of 24 months or more using mammography, and the results of DBT and FFDM were taken as a gold standard. The detection rate and diagnostic efficiency of different types of benign and malignant breast calcification with the two methods were compared and analyzed. The detection rate of morphology and distribution of malignant calcification were compared among groups.Results:There were 240 cases with non-dense breast including 56 cases with benign calcification and 13 cases with malignant calcification. Meanwhile, there were 1 023 cases with dense breast, including 356 cases with benign calcification and 63 cases with malignant calcification. In the cases of non-dense breast, the detection rates of benign calcification by DBT and FFDM were 22.9% (55/240) and 21.7% (52/240), whereas the rates of malignant calcification were 5.0% (12/240) and 4.6% (11/240), all without statistically significances（χ2=0.108, 0.046, P>0.05). No significant differences were observed in the morphology and distribution of malignant calcification detection rates ( P>0.05). In the cases of dense breast, the benign calcification detection rates by DBT and FFDM were 34.2% (350/1 023) and 31.9% (326/1 023), whereas the detection rates of malignant calcification were 6.0% (61/1 023) and 4.9% (50/1 023), all without statistically significances (χ2=1.273 and 1.153, P>0.05). DBT detected more cases of amorphous and cluster distribution of malignant calcification than FFDM, with statistically significant differences (χ2=12.921 and 11.667, P<0.05). The area under ROC curve of DBT and FFDM in diagnosis of non-dense breast were 0.993 and 0.992, and 0.987 and 0.964 in dense breast, respectively, with no significant differences ( Z= 0.136 and 1.391, P>0.05). Conclusions:Compared with FFDM, DBT shows no statistical difference in the diagnostic efficiency of breast calcification. However, it has certain advantages in detecting malignant, amorphous, and clustered calcification in dense breast. DBT has a potential to improve the accuracy of BI-RADS classification of breast calcification.