Two Radiologists versus One CAD Enhanced Radiologist

The results of a recent study suggests that in evaluating the images of mammograms done for breast cancer, one reader attached to a computer might perform just as good as or sometimes even better than two readers,.

In this research study reported and published in “The New England Journal of Medicine” for the second Week of October and released ahead of the print itself, the specificity, sensitivity, and the positive predictive values for both the reading protocols was almost the same.

Prior researches that were done in the same field has already proved well beyond point that the sensitivity and specificity of screening mammography significantly improves with usage of 2 readers rather than 1.

The researchers have also noted that usage of double readers is a standard practice in most of the European countries but may not be very widely used in the United States of America.

Till date it has been very unclear if the single reading system with computer detection system, which relies heavily on various algorithms for analyzing the digital images, could ever match the performance of the system which uses 2 readers.


By Jennifer Larson
Staff Writer, radRounds.com
October 10, 2008