Possibilities of digital breast tomosynthesis and full-field digital mammography in the visualization of breast calcifications

Calcifications are the common findings which are visualized on full-field digital mammography (FFDM) in about 80% of cases. Most calcifications are benign changes that do not pose any threat to the lives of patients. However, suspicious calcifications can also be detected in the breast, which, when are verified, can lead to the discovery of malignant changes in one-third of cases. In recent years, the number of uses of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) has been increasing due to the greater sensitivity and specificity of the method compared to FFDM.The objective: to evaluate the impact of DBT on improvement of the imaging of breast calcifications on FFDM.Materials and methods. We have analyzed FFDM, DBT, and ultrasound (US) test results of 101 women 31–85 years old with and without breast calcifications.Results. The study found that the sensitivity of DBT was 95.2% (p < 0.05), FFDM – 98.8% (p < 0.05), and 21.7% – for breast US examination. The specificity for DBT was 83.3%, while for FFDM – 94.4% (p < 0.05). At the same time, there was no statistically significant difference in the diagnosis of breast calcifications between DBT and FFDM. However, there was a statistically significant advantage of DBT and FFDM over US imaging of breast calcifications (p < 0.01).Conclusions. DBT does not have a significant impact on the imaging of calcifications compared to FFDM, but both methods are significantly superior in sensitivity and specificity to US examination in the imaging of breast calcifications.