Contact spot xeromammography in the early diagnosis of breast cancer.

As currently used, xeromammography is a sensitive and specific test to detect early breast cancers. However small the incidence of false positive and false negative diagnoses may be, they do lead to either false assurance of health in some breast cancer patients or cause some cancer-free women to undergo further radiologic and/or surgical diagnostic workup. To improve the accuracy of xeromammography in breast cancer diagnosis, contact spot xeromammography was used to enhance the image detail when findings on the conventional xeromammogram proved ambiguous. This contact spot technique has now been used about 2,500 times in 10,000 asymptomatic women. Our experience with contact spot xeromamography is described, including instances in which it led to correct diagnoses.