First Major Trial Of Digital Mammography Launched.(Brief Article)

2001 SEP 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) are launching the first large, multicenter study to compare digital mammography to standard mammography for the detection of breast cancer.

The Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST), involving 49,500 women in the United States and Canada, will compare digital mammography to standard film mammography to determine how this new technique compares to the traditional method of screening for breast cancer. Digital mammography uses computers and specially designed detectors to produce a digital image of the breast that can be displayed on high-resolution monitors.

Daniel Sullivan, MD, who is coordinating the trial for the NCI, said that "digital mammography has the potential to provide better detection of early breast cancer, but a large study is needed to really determine whether digital mammography is better than conventional mammography and, if it is better, how large the difference is."

ACRIN is an NCI-sponsored network of physicians, scientists, and medical institutions that have joined together to conduct clinical trials of new medical imaging technologies. The total cost of the digital mammography trial will be $26.3 million.

"This study represents ACRIN's most ambitious undertaking, and certainly the most important," according to Bruce J. Hillman, MD, ACRIN network chair. "The results of this trial will guide women's breast care into the future."

"Standard mammography has been the most studied screening technology over the past 40 years," said the study's Principal Investigator Etta D. Pisano, MD. "What we have here is a well-proven technology, film mammography, and one that is in its infancy, not as well studied yet, digital mammography. We want to make sure that digital mammography is at least as good as standard mammography at finding early breast cancer before it is widely used."