Mammography: technique and diagnostic accuracy

Kim, C J; Lee, D Y; Bahk, Y W

Abstract

Mammography is now in world wide use, but this has received rather scanty attention in Korea. The purposes ofthe present comunication are twofold: (1) Detailing of technical and photographic aspects of mammography and (2) an assessment of its diagnostic accuracy as experienced by us. The clinical materials consisted of 88 cases of mammography performed at the Department of Radiology, St. Mary's Hospital, Catholic Medical College during the 2years-period from April 1972. We used nonscreen type mammographic or industrial fine-grain films, and a specialmammographic device that can be attached to any of the ordinary radiographic machine. Technical factors are shownin Table II. Of 88 cases 19 were operated on or biopsied. There were 7 cases of carcinoma, 8 cases of inflammatory diseases, and 4 cases of benign tumor. Mammographic diagnosis was correct in 85.7% of carcinoma and 87.5% of inflammatory diseases. One misdiagnosis of 7 cases of carcinoma was turned out to be cystosarcoma phylloides. Of 4 cases of benign tumors 2 were correctly diagnosed, and the other 2 mistaken for either inflammatory disease orsimple lactating breast. However none of the benign conditions were diagnosed as malignant process. We found thatnonscreen type mammographic or industrial fine-grain films, and hand-processing were necessary in obtaining the mammograms of desirable quality.