Efficacy of Mastocheck for Screening of Early Breast Cancer: Comparison with Screening Mammography

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE@#This study was designed to verify the effectiveness of Mastocheck, a new diagnostic tool developed with proteomics techniques using plasma proteins. In addition, checked the current state of mammography used for breast cancer screening.@*METHODS@#A total of 305 cases were analyzed (normal 122, breast cancer 183) and used for validation after Mastocheck development. First, screening mammograms of normal patients and pre-diagnosis mammography of cancer patients were reviewed retrospectively. The results were compared with Mastocheck, a newly developed blood test. Imaging tests were blinded and analyzed by dividing the readings of breast specialists and non-breast specialists among radiologists. We confirmed how much better the results would be if only the mammography was used and if both tests were used together.@*RESULTS@#The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of mammography alone, reviewed by non-breast specialists among radiologists, were 63.0%, 85.7%, and 71.3%, respectively. In dense breasts, the values were 59.2%, 84.8% and 69.0%, which were too low to be considered interpretable. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the test was 93.9%, 83.8%, and 90.2% when using mammography and Mastocheck together. From these results, an improvement in sensitivity of about 30% and an improvement in accuracy of about 15% or more in concomitant use than mammography alone can be seen.@*CONCLUSION@#Mastocheck can be widely used for screening breast cancer, especially in dense breasts, patients with low accuracy in mammography, and patients with mammography side effects. In addition, it has the advantage of increasing the diagnosis rate when used with mammography, the current screening method of choice.