The effectiveness digital mammography compared to the analog mammography for breast cancer diagnosticand screening: systematic review

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and one of the leading causes of death in the productivity ages. Mammography screening is the main method for the diagnosis of breast cancer. While analog mammography counts as the standard method of screening, the digital can be an alternative. This review compared the effectiveness and safety of the technologies. Method: In order to collect evidence about the effectiveness of analog and digital mammography a systematic review of diagnostic accuracy studies within 1990 to March 2014 was conducted. The most relevant databases including Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EEDs), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, TRIP, PubMed and Medline. The key words included mammography and its roots. After identification of appropriate studies the quality was evaluated with QUADAS and meta-analysis was used for extracted data pooling.Results: From 35,284 related study, 166 were selected after after topic review. Then by removing duplicates and abstract or full paper review, 13 studies were selected for analysis. The quality of 9 studies was good and the rest were at average range. Meta-analysis revealed that the sensitivity of analog and digital mammography in women under 50 years were 0.61 and 0.81 respectively. Conclusion: Owing to digital mammography’s higher sensitivity and regarding to the increasing prevalence of breast cancer in the Iranian women population, especially in 45-50 and higher safety of digital mammography, we can recommend it, instead of the analog for the screening and diagnosis of breast cancer.

Keywords:

Digital mammography , analog mammography , effectiveness , screening , breast cancer