3D Mammogram

What is 3D mammography?

3D mammography, also known as tomosynthesis, is a relatively new technology that is being adopted in our area and in many locations. Basically, it allows the breast to be visualized in an almost 3D platform where layers of breast tissue are analyzed layer upon layer upon layer rather than just a single X-ray taken in one plane that basically overlaps all the tissue where overlap tissue can mask something.

What are the advantages of 3D mammography?

The 3D imaging allows the radiologist to evaluate the breast layer upon layer with the little flip with a finger on a rollerball that allows the plane to be visualized up and down, back and forth, and so on and in different images. And little areas that would not have been detected by just a single image of all those layers can be detected. And the advantage of that has clearly been shown that many more things can be identified that weren't before, and there's a higher rate of those small things being cancer that would not have been seen with the standard mammogram. But, the other part of this that's also exciting is in many instances what was found to possibly be an abnormality on a 2D image is found to really be normal tissue on a 3D image. So the other advantage of that is that it decreases the number of times that a woman would have to be called back for additional imaging because we know based on that original imaging that an abnormality thought previously maybe to have been abnormal really is a normal finding. So it decreases the number of callbacks as well as it decreases the number of biopsies that need to be performed. But then it does find some things that would normally not have been found that when biopsied can be cancer. So the cancer detection rate goes up; the callback rate goes down; and so it accomplishes exactly what we would hope it did on both fronts.