Mammography at reduced doses: present performance and future possibilities.

Reduced dose mammography is assessed with the aid of very recent work. It is concluded that there are technical and clinical reasons for believing that the reduced dose systems and their interpreters should perform more effectively than their predecessors. Review of known technologic achievements suggests a possible 6 to 7 reduction factor from present screen-film mammography dose levels without sacrificing image quality. Reasonable estimates of representative doses presently achieved by both xeroradiography and screen-film systems are given. The screen-film value is about 3 times higher than some previous estimates for these systems.