The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that breast cancer is ranked first as the most prevalent cancer amongst American women. For the past four decades, mammography has been considered the standard of care for breast cancer screening and detection. However, in recent times treatment of DBT (Digital Breast Tomosynthesis) or 3D mammography has gained considerable popularity.
In a recent research study published, a research team has evaluated the benefits of 3D mammography amongst a diverse group of women within a real-world setting. The study is an interesting contribution to the Digital Breast Tomosynthesis Market as it evaluated the benefits of using this form of treatment against a largely prevalent disease. It concluded that in a large population of private insured disease, DBT was seemed to have a slightly lower recall rate in contrast to 2D mammography while having a higher cancer detection rate. However, the study did not have any comments on whether the increased cancer detection improved the clinical outcomes or not.
The primary goal of the team was to understand if the DBT was rolled out as standard practice across the country, the benefits associated with the treatment in early studies would still be observed in a more heterogeneous context. To reach a conclusion, researchers used de-identified insurance claim data from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Axis. The data comprised of over four million women between the age group of 40 to 64 years and had undergone a mammogram screening between 1st Jan 2015 and 31st Dec 2017. The researchers focused on how frequently women were called back to the clinic to get additional imaging tests and the occurrences of a breast cancer diagnosis.
Earlier studies reflected that if women were screened through DBT, the recall rate was reduced by 22 per 1000 women screened. The stats are quite beneficial as being called leads to patients being worried. The team found that follow-up imaging in the population taken in the study was only a little lower among women screened with DBT, with stats being only 2 in 1000 women being able to avoid additional imaging with 3D than 2D mammography. Thus, some of the benefits associated with DBT in earlier studies were somewhat present in real-world populations as well. It is a usual occurrence that when new technologies are disseminated, some of the benefits are much smaller than which was described in initial studies. However, the team did observe a higher cancer detection rate in DBT, as was found by earlier studies. The research team has revealed that they will continue their work in evaluating the costs of DBT and its outcomes amongst older women. They will also evaluate the adoption rate of DBT.