ECR 2018 : Digital breast tomosynthesis : ready for prime time in Europe ?

Solveig Hofving, Head of the Norwegian Breast Cancer Screening Program explained at ECR 2018, just finished in Vienna, that although several studies have shown higher cancer detection rate for tomosynthesis compared to digital mammography, most of these were performed just with tomosynthesis which means doubling the doses, and performed in the USA where women are screened in a much broader age range and screened every year. Studies from the USA have also shown that tomosynthesis lowered the recall rate, which is between 1015, about 3-5 percent in Europe and in Norway it is 3 percent. Decreasing recall rate from 3 to 2.5 is much more difficult, and it is also questioned whether it is achievable, but reducing the recall rate from 15 to 12 percent means a lot for women, but it is not where we are in Europe. These were reasons for doing RCT. Also wanted to use other equipment used in most of the other studies published.