The technology has been shown to increase the diagnostic accuracy of breast cancer screening and diagnosis, wrote the team led by Dr. Gilda Boroumand. But the study findings suggest there's room for improvement in its uptake.
Boroumand's group evaluated national Medicare Part B Physician/Supplier Procedure Summary Master Files from 2015, the first and only year in which billing codes for DBT are available. The researchers calculated procedure volume for screening and diagnostic mammography, as well as DBT using global and professional component claims, and they used specialty codes to track the specialty of interpreting physicians for each exam.
A total of 5.7 million screening mammography exams were performed in 2015. Of these, 1.1 million (18.9%) included DBT. The same year, 1.4 million diagnostic mammography exams were performed, with 226,682 (16.2%) including DBT.
Radiologists billed most of the mammograms (more than 96%). Among radiologists, DBT studies were used in conjunction with 19.1% of screening mammograms and 16.4% of diagnostic exams. Nonradiologists used DBT with 16.7% of screening mammograms and 8.7% of diagnostic exams.
"Radiologists appear to be earlier adopters of this technology compared with nonradiologists, possibly related to the fact that the latter have far less involvement in the field," the researchers wrote. "It will be important to follow the adoption of the technology in subsequent years."
