The Impact of Introducing Full Field Digital Mammography into a Screening Programme

As digital mammography has largely replaced analogue mammography for screening, we examine the impact of the change on clinical outcomes. Data were obtained for 62,599 women undergoing routine screening mammography between January 2010 and March 2012 during the transition from analogue to digital screening, and on a monthly basis for the two years following complete conversion to digital mammography. With digital mammography, the recall rate increased from 3.58% to 4.69% (p<0.001) and the biopsy/cytology referral rate increased from 1.49% to 1.88% (p=0.01) whilst the cancer detection rate did not change significantly. The recall rate showed a strong positive correlation with time (r=0.71, p<0.001) and biopsy rate showed a moderate positive correlation (r=0.52 p=0.011). The cancer detection rate showed a moderate negative correlation with time (r=-0.567 p=0.05). Whilst all the outcome measures reported meet the standards set by the national screening programme, these results indicate a need for regular monitoring following changes to screening technology.