DIGITAL BREAST
TOMOSYNTHESIS FOR DETECTION OF BREAST MASS IN MEN
Breast lumps among adult male
patients seem to be uncommon in family practice; consequently they may pose a special diagnostic challenge. The diagnosis may also be late or delayed, perhaps because the male breast is not subject to same widespread lay and professional attention accorded the female breast. As a rule, men do not regularly examine their breast, nor do their physicians.
Due to the increasing number of men having breast lumps being reported, researchers come to a digital solution to the problem. They produced an iterative reconstruction of Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization which produces high quality images which is known as Digital Breast
Tomosynthesis.
Digital tomosynthesis creates a three dimensional picture of the breast using x-rays. Digital tomosynthesis of the breast is different from a standard mammogram in the same way a CAT Scan of the chest is different from the chest x-ray. Digital tomosynthesis is a new kind of test that’s trying to overcome these three big issues: discomfort with compression, cancer hiding within the overlapping tissue, and limited number of views.
Early results with digital tomosynthesis are promising. I believe that this new breast imaging technique will make breast cancers easier to see in dense breast tissue, and will make breast screening more comfortable. The ability to separate and optimize acquisition, storage, and display of the image may allow greater visualization of breast cancers at equal or lower radiation doses, especially in younger women, those with denser breast and in men having breast tumors.
There are also several advantages of digital tomosynthesis rather than a conventional mammogram. Digital takes multiple X-ray pictures of each breast from many angles. The breast is positioned the same way it is in a conventional mammogram, but only a little pressure is applied just enough to keep the breast in a stable position during the procedure. the X-ray tubes move in an arc around the breast while 11 images are taken during a seven second examination. Then the information is sent to a computer, where it is assembled to produce clear, highly focused 3-dimensional images throughout the breast. Significant limitations in mammograms like uncomfortable during compression, overlapping that causes some tumors being hide on the overlapping tissue and a single picture of the breast were solved.
Digital tomosynthesis threfore, is more accurate than either digital or film
mammography for screening purposes. Furthermore, digital tomosynthesis performs better than mammography precisely in those patients suffer from breast tumors like males and women who has denser breast. The increased accuracy also appears to be obtained at radiation doses that are no higher and may be lower than those found in mammography. Given the distribution of cancers detected in the digital tomosynthesis population, digital tomosynthesis’ use for diagnosis appears warranted. In comparing these two modalities, differences in accuracy is large, and that mammography using either mode will produce many false positive results that require follow-up, and that some cancers that would have been detected using Digital Tomosynthesis will not be found using digital or film mammography.
Unluckily, digital tomosynthesis is only available for research purposes.