Potential usefulness of breast radiographers' reporting as a second opinion for radiologists' reading in digital mammography

Abstract

We investigated a potential usefulness of breast radiographers' reporting, in terms of a second opinion for improving radiologists' diagnostic performance in the detection of microcalcifications in digital mammography. This simulation study was conducted, by use of an existing jackknife free-response receiver operating characteristic (JAFROC) observer study data obtained with 75 cases(25 malignant, 25 benign, and 25 normal cases) of digital mammogram, selected form the digital database for screening mammography (DDSM) provided by University of South Florida. Each of rating scores obtained by 6 breast radiographers was utilized as a second opinion for 4 radiologists' reading with radiographers' reporting. Average figure of merit (FOM) of radiologists' performance was generally improved by use of radiographer's reporting, and significant improvements were found in case of 3 out of 6 radiographers' reporting used. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.