Conventional or digital mammography?

Digital techniques have been applied in many fields of diagnostic radiology, but they were not accepted in mammography. The technological base of direct digital mammography was the development of CCD-chips. Clinical experiences with this system are promising and may lead to replacement of conventional techniques in the future. With intraindividual correlation studies it was shown that microcalcifications were detected better than with conventional techniques. Patients' dose is equal with both system and the reporting time could be reduced. Moreover, digital mammography is important for the use of software programmes of computer assisted diagnosis (CAD). (author)