Preliminary experience with mammography

Radiologists with very limited practical experience in mammography initially achieved a low PVsub(pos) (0.50) and a high PVsub(neg) (0.95) in blind mammography of 80 patients with 85 excised and histologically examined breast tumours. After having read films from approximately 2500 patients the initial films were blindly reevaluated. PVsub(neg) was unchanged, whereas PVsub(pos) was elevated significantly (0.80). The intraobserver variation was 11.5 per cent. The actual interobserver variation was 3.2 per cent. These findings indicate that the reliability of blind mammography in patients with palpable tumours of the breast is considerable, also in case of only limited mammographic experience. (orig.)