role of tomosynthesis in determining the bi-rads score of individuals with indeterminate mammography results

Background: tomosynthesis, despite its potential to produce superior images compared to mammography for breast imaging-reporting and data system (bi-rads) scoring, has not yet been widely adopted. this is likely due to a combination of insufficient data and a scarcity of expertise in this area. objectives: in this study, we aimed to evaluate the potential benefits of tomosynthesis for patients with indeterminate bi-rads results from full-field digital mammography (ffdm). specifically, we sought to determine whether this method could clarify ambiguous bi-rads scores. patients and methods: this cross-sectional study involved 386 female patients, with an average age of 44.7 ± 7.9 years. the study included all patients who were admitted to a referral center for breast radiology during 2019 - 2020 and underwent both ffdm and tomosynthesis within a short interval. the purpose of performing tomosynthesis was to assess its additional benefits over ffdm. the collected data was input into spss version 20 for analysis. a p-value of less than 0.05 was deemed statistically significant. results: out of 152 patients who initially had indeterminate findings in mammography (bi-rads score of 0), only one patient (0.7%) remained indeterminate after tomosynthesis. this implies that tomosynthesis was able to clarify the bi-rads scores for 99.3% of patients with previously indeterminate scores. specifically, out of these 151 patients, 81 were scored as bi-rads 2, 45 as bi-rads 3, 19 as bi-rads 4, and six as bi-rads 5. conclusion: tomosynthesis has the capability to clarify unclear ffdm bi-rads scores in over 99% of cases. this suggests that it could serve as the primary supplementary imaging technique for cases with indeterminate bi-rads scores.