Evaluating artificial intelligence-generated synthesized mammography as a standalone alternative to digital mammography with or without tomosynthesis.

PURPOSE: To evaluate whether standalone synthesized mammography (SM) can maintain or improve diagnostic accuracy while reducing reading time and radiation dose, compared to digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) with digital mammography (DM) or DM alone.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

This was a retrospective study. SM images were generated using an AI-supported DBT reading method that synthesizes key features from DBT images without displaying marks or outlines. Twelve readers independently evaluated 200 breasts (including 50 cancers) using SM alone and DM with or without DBT acquired from October 2022 to January 2023. Diagnostic performance was assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, reading time, and radiation dose. A multireader, multicase statistical model was applied. Sample size and power calculations were based on estimates from a prior study.

RESULTS

SM alone achieved an AUC of 0.912, which did not differ significantly from that of DBT with DM (0.906; p = 0.538) or DM alone (0.897; p = 0.13). Sensitivity improved from 88.1% (DBT with DM) and 86.6% (DM) to 90.9% with SM, with a significant improvement over DM (p = 0.042). Specificity remained comparable (SM: 84.5%; DBT with DM: 85.9%; DM: 86.5%). SM alone reduced mean reading time by 53.1% (122.6 to 57.5 s; p < 0.001) and radiation dose by 39% (1.73 vs. 2.84 mGy) compared with DBT with DM.

CONCLUSIONS

Standalone AI-generated SM preserved the diagnostic accuracy of DBT with DM while reducing reading time and radiation dose, and improved sensitivity over DM without loss of specificity.