Quality Assurance and Training for Mammography (MMG) in Health Examination Centers

The quality of screening of breast cancer as well as most other cancers is dependent on diagnostic image quality. Diagnosis and cure at an early stage cannot be achieved without good quality images. We examined kVp, focal point size, film screen contact, and image quality evaluation with a phantom at our center and others conforming to the ACR (American Cancer Society) program to find out if MMG by a dedicated MMG unit matched the ACR guidelines. We sent questionnaires to 54 centers in Kanagawa and found that 8 centers (14.5%) matched the guidelines, 10 centers (18.5%) owned a ACR-156 phantom, and only 4 centers (7.4%) adopted the QA testing protocol recommended by the ACR. These results indicate the need for wider acceptance of the ACR guidelines. Our center will try to improve image quality management in the future.