Diagnostic performance of mammography and ultrasound in breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Level 1 - systematic review of randomized trials
Systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies
PubMed 36696046 · doi:10.1007/s40477-022-00755-3
What was done
A systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic studies published between 2008 and 2021 was conducted across PubMed, Scopus, and EMBASE to evaluate the diagnostic performance of mammography (MMG) and ultrasound (US) for breast cancer detection. Summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves were constructed with histopathologic analysis and/or clinical and imaging follow-up of at least 6 months used as the reference standard.
What was found
On a per-patient basis, pooled sensitivity was 0.82 (95% CI 0.76–0.87) for MMG and 0.83 (95% CI 0.71–0.91) for US. Pooled specificity was 0.84 (95% CI 0.73–0.92) for MMG and 0.84 (95% CI 0.74–0.91) for US. AUC values were 0.8933 for MMG and 0.8310 for US. On a per-lesion basis, pooled sensitivity was 76% (95% CI 0.62–0.86) for MMG versus 94% (95% CI 0.87–0.97) for US; pooled specificity was 82% (95% CI 0.66–0.91) for MMG versus 84% (95% CI 0.74–0.91) for US.
Why it matters
The findings indicate that mammography and ultrasound offer comparable diagnostic accuracy per patient, but ultrasound achieves higher sensitivity when evaluated per lesion.
Limits
The abstract does not report the number of included studies or participants. Subgroup differences such as breast density, screening versus diagnostic indications, and operator dependency were not detailed.
Cited by
- supports Mammography has an approximate sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 85%.