The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just issued guidelines that will temporarily limit the number of mammography facilities which are authorized to perform digital mammography. Digital mammography is a new breast cancer screening technique that uses computerized digital images to scan the breast for abnormalities.
Traditional mammography is based on taking film images of the breast.
In 1992 Congress enacted the MQSA to ensure that all women have equal access to quality mammography for the detection of breast cancer in its earliest, most treatable stages. In 1998, Congress reauthorized the MQSA, extending the program to 2002. As part of the MQSA legislation, Congress charged the Food and Drug Administration with developing and implementing regulations to help ensure that mammography is consistently safe and reliable, and that consumers receive uniformly high-quality services from facilities throughout the United States. The FDA is following a similar approach in developing guidelines for digital mammography. But until it completes this task, the agency is only authorizing digital mammography to be performed in facilities that are already accredited to perform analog mammographies.