New breast density technology debuts at ECR Conference

A new research technology was profiled today during scientific sessions at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in Vienna, Austria. Densitas Research Edition assesses mammographic breast density using 'for presentation' digital mammography images.

In a presentation focused specifically on the technology itself, study results using 1,823 images showed excellent agreement between Densitas Research Edition density measures and radiologists' visual assessment. This concept is also known as 'face validity'. The research also confirmed the internal reliability of Densitas Research Edition, or its ability to consistently generate the same, valid results repeatedly.

"Densitas Research Edition provides consistent, reliable and reproducible results," said Mohamed Abdolell, CEO of Densitas and a biostatistician. "This gives us the ability to address a key challenge for radiologists who visually assess mammographic density: inter and intra-operator variability."

Currently, the standard way to assess mammographic density is a radiologist's visual assessment. Such subjective evaluation is prone to poor reproducibility between two radiologists reading the same image. As well, even the same radiologist could assess an image at different times and report a different result. Densitas Research Edition standardizes the assessment of mammographic density.

Additional Presentations

The application was also used in a case-control study that looked at Tabár parenchymal patterns and breast cancer risk, using Densitas Research Edition's percent area mammographic density.

In a poster session, mammographic density measures from Densitas Research Edition were compared to typical clinical risk factors in evaluating breast cancer risk during screening mammography.

"We're pleased to support the breast cancer research community with this online application, at no charge," said Abdolell. "It's easy for researchers to use and generate fast, reliable, and consistent measures of mammographic density to support their work in the field."

Densitas is also working on a comprehensive suite of technologies to address real clinical problems in the digital mammography enterprise.