Xeromammography : a Study of 59 Cancers and 204 Non-Cancerous Lesions of the Breast

Of female patients who were subjected to mammary gland xeromammography at the 2nd Dept. of Surgery, Hiroshima University School of Medicine for a period from 1979 to 1983, 59 patients with palpable breast cancer and 204 non-cancerous patients confirmed pathologically were studied mainly in regard to direct signs.

The incidence of cancer was relatively high in P2 and DY (so-called high-risk) parenchymal pattern groups, indicating necessity of minute interpretation of mammograms in these two groups. As for direct signs of breast cancer, the incidence of tumor shadow was 77.9% (46/59) and that of calcification including microcalcification (21 cases) was 42.9% (25/59) in cancer patients.

The false negative rate of xerommography was 13.6% (8/59), attributable to misinterpretation in 4 cases and to mammograms themselves which were completely normal in the remaining 4 cases. The mean age of the false negative cases seemed to be younger than that of whole cancer cases (59 cases) while neither histopathological findings nor parenchymal patterns significantly correlated with the results.