Comparison of advanced X-ray modalities

Contrast-enhanced digital mammography (CEDM) (Chapter 2), stereo mammography (Chapter 3), breast tomosynthesis (Chapter 4), and breast CT (Chapter 5) are being developed with the goal of addressing key technical limitations of digital mammography (Chapter 1), which are widely believed to hinder its efficacy for breast cancer detection and diagnosis (Chapter 7). One limitation of digital mammography is that it is an anatomical examination, i.e., it does not provide any functional information regarding the physiological properties of the imaged tissue. The goal of CEDM is to provide functional information regarding blood flow. The motivation is that cancerous tissues are known to exhibit increased blood flow relative to normal tissues. In most typical scenarios, the other advanced modalities discussed in this section (Chapters 3-5) are strictly anatomical examinations, although there has been some research on introducing contrast into these imaging studies as well, as discussed in Chapter 2.