Accuracy of Digital Mammography Unit in Diagnosis Breast Cancer in Gaza Strip, Palestine

Breast cancer is considered a major health problem and the most common cancer among females in both developed and non-developed countries. Early diagnosis of breast cancer decreases morbidities and mortalities. This study attempts to explore the accuracy measures of a digital mammography unit in the diagnosis of breast cancer and compare the mammography results with the final histopathology results.

The study was designed as a cross-sectional prospective hospital base in which mammography examination was used for patients. Then, U/S was performed as a complementary study. All the mammography and U/S reports were reviewed and compared with the histopathology results. Six indicators were used to measure the accuracy of the mammography system using their formulas. SPSS program was used to examine the correlation between imaging results and histopathological findings and to draw the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Confidence interval was considered at 95% and margin of error at 5%.

Sensitivity, Specificity, PPV, NPV, accuracy and the area under the ROC curve of mammography alone were 94.9%, 66.7%, 90%, 66.7%, 0.771 and increased to 100%, 76.9%, 90.3%, 100%, 92.7%, 0.917, respectively when Ultrasound was used as a complementary to mammography. A statistically significant moderate correlation was shown between the results of mammography alone and histopathology results (Spearman correlation= 0.527, P-value<0.01), and a statistically significant strong correlation between mammography combined with ultrasound, and histopathology results (Spearman correlation=0.882, P-value<0.01).

Mammography is an important tool to detect breast cancer. Mammography when combined with Ultrasound yields a very significant improvement in sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing different breast lesions.