NEW YORK — Hologic’s 3-D mammograms, when paired with traditional screening, caught more deadly breast cancers than standard scans alone and resulted in fewer women being called back for more testing, a study found.
When combined, the two screening methods caught 41 percent more cancers than traditional mammography alone, according to research funded by Hologic and published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. With the combination approach, 15 percent fewer women had to get more tests because of unclear results, researchers said.
The study is the largest to evaluate the effectiveness of 3-D mammography, a technology approved by U.S. regulators in 2011 that is not as widely available as conventional screening, the authors said. The method lets doctors see through the layers of the breast like the pages of a book to find cancers that may not be detected in traditional 2-D test, they said.
“We have a technology that is improving upon the main limitations of standard mammograms,” said lead study author Sarah Friedewald, section chief of breast imaging at Advocate Lutheran General in Park Ridge, Ill., in a telephone interview last week. “We now have a more accurate examination.”
