While I can’t speak from personal experience, I understand there are few things less pleasant than a mammography, a routine test for breast cancer in women. One thing that is worse is to be told the mammograph is positive and, after further tests including possibly a biopsy, being told it was a false positive. I guess it would be still worse to be told you are OK, but later learning it was a false negative and you really do have breast cancer.

Matt Brennesholtz
Insight Media Analyst

At the recent Radiological Society of North America (RSNA, www.rsna.org) annual meeting in Chicago, a paper was presented by David J. Getty, Ph.D., division scientist at BBN Technologies, on the use of stereoscopic digital mammography and 5Mpixel 3D displays from Planar to screen for breast cancer. The paper presented the results of a clinical trial being conducted at Emory University Breast Clinic in Atlanta. Co-authors of the paper are C.J. D’Orsi, M.D., R.M. Pickett, Ph.D., M.S. Newell, M.D., K.R. Gundry, M.D., S.F. Roberson, M.D., S.R. Bates, M.D., and others.

As of July 2007, 1,093 patients at elevated risk for developing breast cancer were enrolled in the trial. Each patient received a full-field, standard digital mammography screening examination and a full-field, stereoscopic digital exam, which were then read independently by different radiologists.

The combined mammography procedures produced a total of 259 suspicious findings that were referred for additional diagnostic testing, including biopsy when indicated. Of those 259 suspicious findings, 109 were determined to be true lesions. Standard mammography missed 40 of the 109 lesions while the stereoscopic exam missed only 24.

Of the 259 findings, 150 were false positives, meaning further testing revealed that no abnormality was present. Standard mammography produced 103 false positives; stereo mammography produced only 53.

"In our study, stereo digital mammography reduced false positives by 49 percent," said Dr. Getty. "This could have a significant impact by cutting in half the number of women who are needlessly recalled for additional diagnostic work-ups, resulting in a large savings in cost and patient anxiety."

These findings are just preliminary, and the plan is to evaluate a total of 1500 patients before the trial ends later this month. According to Dr. Getty, offering wide-scale stereoscopic digital mammography would involve only minor changes to existing digital mammography equipment and software.

Stereoscopic displays have always had professional applications, this is just one more. Others are discussed in the Insight Media 3D Technology and Markets report (http://www.insightmedia.info/reports/20073dtech.php). But this is an application that may have high practical importance to a large segment of the population. 3D isn’t just for Beowulf anymore.

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