Digital mammography is a new breast cancer detection tool.
Digital mammography is faster and more accurate than conventional X-ray mammography, providing doctors with more information for better image resolution, and thus potentially allowing for earlier patient diagnosis of breast cancer. Digital mammography, on the other hand, produces a sharp picture regardless of tissue density and allows the image to be altered to enhance structures in the breast. Doctors hope that this technology will offer a higher degree of accuracy in identifying tumors and other breast abnormalities. This is particularly important when dense breast tissue obscure tumors, as in younger women, women who have had radiation, or women who have had hormone replacement therapy. Barring discovery, these cancers often spread and become life threatening.