The Role of Dual-energy Contrast Enhanced Digital Mammography in The Detection and Diagnosis of Lesions in Dense Breasts

Abstract

CEDM is a recent development of digital mammography using the intra-venous injection of an iodinatedcontrast agent in conjunction with mammography examination. Initial clinical experience has shown the ability of CEDM to mapthe distribution of neo-vasculature induced by cancer using mammography. Moreover, previous studieshave shown a superiority of CEDM either for the assessment of the probability of malignancy or for BI-RADS assessment compared to mammography alone. The potential clinical applications are the clarification ofmammographically equivocal lesions, the detection of occult lesions on standard mammography, particularlyin dense breast, the determination of the extent of disease, the assessment of recurrent disease andthe monitoring of the response to chemotherapy.CEDM should result in a simpleway to enhance the detection and the characterization of breast lesions.

Key words CEDM- digital mammography- breast lesions