A cohort of Italian radiologists match international counterparts in breast cancer

A cohort of Italian radiologists match international counterparts in breast cancer

BACKGROUND: Italy has amongst the highest incidence rates of breast cancer in the world, highlighting the need for high quality early diagnosis to reduce mortality. This study investigated a group of Italian radiologists’ detection efficacy, compared to their Australian and Singaporean counterparts.
METHODS: Using a test-set of 60 mammographic cases, 20 of which contained a cancer, jackknife free response operating characteristic figure-of-merit (JAFROC FOM) and receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (ROC AUC) were calculated as well as location sensitivity, sensitivity and specificity.
RESULTS: The data indicates that while years of experience is an important factor in breast cancer detection, consistently reading mammograms produces a better reading performance; this analysis indicates that, within this group of Italian radiologists, those who read the number of mammograms (5000/year) required by national standards perform at the same standard as Australians who do the same (2000/year). Within the study, the JAFROC metric displays similar scores for Australian and Singaporean radiologists who read <100 cases per week, whereas this group of Italian radiologist’s scores were significantly lower. Within the group, Italian radiologists who had <10 years mammography experience also demonstrated lower scores when compared to their Australian and more experienced Italian colleagues.
CONCLUSIONS: The results highlight the importance of reading sufficient number of mammograms and the need for appropriate training to maintain levels of diagnostic efficacy throughout one’s radiologic career.

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