New research from the Netherlands shows that the switch from screen film mammography (SFM) to digital mammography (DM) in large, population-based breast cancer screening programs improves the detection of life-threatening cancer without significantly increasing detection of clinically insignificant disease. Results of the study are published online in the journal Radiology. DM’s higher sensitivity at detecting breast cancer raised concerns that its introduction into screening programs would increase the diagnosis of clinically unimportant cancers—cancers that, if left undetected and therefore untreated, would never have surfaced clinically in the person’s lifetime. Data analysis showed an increased incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a precursor for invasive breast cancer, in the years after the introduction of population-based screening with DM. The development of low-grade DCIS can extend over more than three decades; however, high-grade DCIS is associated with far more rapid cancer invasion.
