Background: Contrast-enhanced spectral mammography or "contrast mammography" has a better cost effectiveness than breast magnetic resonance for confirmation of suspicious lesions detected on breast screening programs.
Aim: To report the experience of a single center in Santiago.
Material and methods: All patients referred for contrast mammography between July 2015 and October 2017 were studied. We recorded the patient risk factors for breast cancer. In 85 patients with suspicious lesions, biopsy results were available.
Results: We analyzed 465 contrast mammographies. The most common clinical indications were suspicion of cancer and previous inconclusive studies. Mass type lesions were detected in 33% of the studies. Non-mass-type lesions were observed in 10% of cases and findings compatible with papillomatosis in 2%. Fifty five percent of the studies had no visible lesions. In the 85 patients with a pathological study of the biopsy, the sensitivity of the contrast mammography was 100%, with a diagnostic accuracy of 85%, positive and negative predictive values of 82 and 100% respectively.
Conclusions: Contrast mammography can be of great use for the assessment of patients with an altered conventional mammography, before indicating a magnetic resonance imaging or a percutaneous biopsy.