Compliance of Full Field Digital Mammography Systems with the European Protocol for Image Quality and Dose

The European Guideline for Breast Cancer Screening recommends methods to assess the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and mean glandular dose (MGD) for full field digital mammography systems and provides limiting values that should be achieved. The performance of six integrated digital systems and three computed radiography (CR) systems was compared with these limiting values. Only one of the integrated systems and all three CR systems required adjustment to meet the CNR standards. For an equivalent breast thickness of 53 mm, the MGD varied between 1.1 mGy and 1.6 mGy for the integrated systems and between 2.0 mGy and 2.4 mGy for the CR systems. The range in doses increased with increasing breast thickness. Integrated systems consistently performed better than the CR systems against the European Protocol across a range of equivalent breast thicknesses. (author)