A mammography quality assurance test program.

The design and implementation of a program to investigate remote quality assurance testing for film mammography is described. The measurements included tube output, x-ray machine and processor stability, and film quality. Mammography phantoms and film sensitometric strips were distributed monthly to 24 regional hospitals. Most of the hospital processors and x-ray machines performed in a stable manner during the 12-month test period. It was found that x-ray machine useful beams could be reliably measured using nonscreen films. The main utility of the phantom was to identify cases of poor image quality. The measurements performed on the phantom image could not be used to diagnose specific causes of poor images.