ABSTRACT
Mammography is an X-ray examination of the breast, obtained by dedicated equipment, optimized for breast cancer detection or characterization. Although introduced as early as the 1970s, mammography is still considered the most effective imaging technique for early detection of breast cancer, and it is now widely used as a screening and diagnostic tool. A major challenge is to image subtle features, like small, low-contrast masses or microcalcification clusters, within an X-ray image of the breasts (inherently low-contrasted), allowing breast radiologists to make a correct interpretation. Since the 2000s, mammography has gained an advantage from the evolution of image detector technology, moving from screen-film combinations to digital detectors. The major benefit of digital mammography comes from the separation between image acquisition and image display; post-processing tools became accessible to the users on dedicated workstations, making radiologists more confident about their image interpretation. Non-inferiority of digital versus screen-film mammography was firstly proved by the Oslo 2 Trial (Skaane and Skjennald 2004), while the publication of the results from the Digital Mammography Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST) showed that digital mammography is more accurate than screen-film mammography for young women and women with dense breasts, that is, for those groups of women for whom screen-film mammography was less sensitive (Pisano et al. 2005).
