Soft-Copy Reading in Digital Mammography of Microcalcifications: Diagnostic Performance of a 5-Megapixel Cathode Ray Tube Monitor versus a 3-Megapixel Liquid Crystal Display Monitor in a Clinical Setting

Background: A recent study using dedicated contrast-detail phantoms showed that the image quality of a 3-megapixel (M) monitor can approach that of a 5M monitor in digital mammography.Purpose: To compare a 5M cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor with a 3M liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor for soft-copy reading of digital mammography of microcalcifications in a clinical setting.Material and Methods: 100 screen-detected microcalcification lesions (34 malignant and 66 benign) without mass that had been evaluated with 11-gauge stereotactic vacuum-assisted breast biopsy or definitive surgery were recruited into the study. One radiologist analyzed the soft-copy mammograms on a 5M CRT monitor and a 3M LCD monitor with 5 months between interpretations and scored the likelihood of malignancy and calcification distribution on a five-point scale. Calcification morphology and breast density were scored on a four-point scale. Positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated on the basis...