“What are the key experiential factors that can impact upon breast reader's performance and what is the affect of total annual volume of mammograms reading per year on performance"

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation is an opportunity for me to extend my regards to my research supervisor, my beloved friends, and my family for their untiring support that they furnished throughout my research. I am grateful to them for their belief in me and the guidance that they provided me without which I would have never been able to work on and complete this research. It also signifies my own views and does not closely relate to the university.

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DECLARATION

I, (Your name), would like to declare that all contents included in this study stand for my individual work without any aid, and this proposal has not been submitted for any examination at academic as well as professional level, previously. It is also represents my very own views and not essentially those that are associated with other university.

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI

DECLARATIONII

LITERATURE REVIEW1

INTRODUCTION1

MAMMOGRAPHY2

THE VARIABLES AFFECTING THE ACCURACY OF SCREENING6

Radiologist6

The radiological expertise of science7

Literature from the medical decision-making7

STUDIES RELATED TO THE AFFECT OF TOTAL ANNUAL VOLUME READINGS PER YEAR ON READER PERFORMANCE14

REFERENCES22

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

In the United States, the mainstream of breast cancers are diagnosed due to an unusual screening study, even though important number are first brought to concentration by a clinician or a patient examination of breast. Mammography is a particular type of imaging technique, it assists to examine breast by using a low dose x-ray system. Mammogram is a mammography exam which aids in the breast disease diagnosis, and early detection in women. Radiograph (an X-ray) is a non invasive test of medicine that aids the physicians to treat and diagnose medical conditions. X ray imaging involves exposing a body part to small ionizing dose radiations so that pictures can be produced of the inside of the body. The oldest and the most frequently used form of medical imaging are X-rays (Carney, 2004). In mammography three recent advances include breast tomosynthesis, computer-aided detection and digital mammography. Features of mammography include interpretation of mammogram reports and test performance characteristics.

The screening of breast cancer shows wide radiologist (inter observer) variability while interpreting the mammograms of screening (Carney, 2004). This type of variability depend on a diversity of other aspects such as radiologist experience, particular descriptions of every patient and breast to a huge degree, and the protocols for mammogram reading. Sometimes substantially the radiologist have been observed to differ both in their recommendation of follow up and in their interpretation of mammograms. Therefore there lies a hug variability in mammogram reading that is known to affect the screening program quality by influencing the rates of recall, which may either be high (proving women anxiety, enhanced cost and false positives) and may be low ( diagnostic delay and undetected tumours). Among radiologist various efforts have been made to describe the variability by various practice related factors for example the reading volume annually (Theberge ...