Clinical Research Directory

A Multi-Level Strategy for De-implementing Mammography Overuse Among Older Women

This project aims to advance methodological and theoretical approaches for developing, selecting, refining, and piloting a multilevel de-implementation strategy to reduce the overuse of screening mammography in women aged ≥75 years. Informed by an innovative participatory, stakeholder-driven innovation tournament and a discrete choice experiment, the research team identified, prioritized, and tailored a multilevel de-implementation strategy. The research team will conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial (at the provider level) to test the impact of the provider- and patient-level components of the multilevel strategy on screening mammography use, and secondarily, on provider referrals/orders for screening mammography. The organizational level components of the multilevel strategy will be implemented among all participants, not via random assignment.

Mammography and Breast Arterial Calcification: An Information-Sharing Trial

The purpose of this research study is to determine the potential benefits of adding information on patients' breast arterial calcification (BAC) results to the standard results letter women receive after mammography. In addition to looking for potential breast cancer, research shows that mammograms can also detect the presence of calcifications within the breast arteries. Those calcifications can be associated with coronary artery disease. Right now, women are not routinely told whether or not they have BAC; that is, it's not part of standard practice to communicate that information to patients. However, previous research has suggested that patients would like to be informed about their BAC status more often. In this study, the team has two goals. First, the team wants to measure the rates of BAC in a large, representative group of 5708 women. Second, the study team wants to understand the effects of giving women information on their BAC results as part of their standard post-mammography letter. Specifically, the study team wants to see how sharing that information might affect women's healthcare choices and lifestyle. The research will include 508 women in this second part of the study, which will be the first in the literature to explore women's reactions to BAC information. If research shows that women find the information useful, BAC information may be given to women regularly in the future.

Pilot Study of MammoGRIP for Breast Positioning, Image Quality, and Patient Comfort in Mammography

To evaluate the effectiveness of MammoGRIP® in improving mammographic image quality and minimizing repeated breast positioning compared to standard practice without MammoGRIP®.

Prospective Case Collection Study for New Mammography Technologies

To evaluate the safety and efficacy of the proposed investigational device and assess its clinical utility in breast cancer screening and diagnosis to support continuing technology development of the investigational technology.

Searching for Masses and Calcifications at the Same Time in Breast Cancer Screening

Brief Summary A task like breast cancer screening (mammography) can be described as a "hybrid search" task. In basic visual search tasks, observers search for a target among distractors that are not the target. In hybrid search, observers search for two or more target types. In mammography, observers are searching for masses, calcifications ("calcs"), and some other signs of cancer like architectural distortion. In this experiment, the investigators have created a simulated version of mammography where non-expert (non-radiologist) observers can look for simulated masses and calcs. There are two types of stimuli, a 2D version (like an x-ray) and a 3D version (like the output of Digital Breast Tomosynthesis - DBT). The question that is being asked is whether it is better to ask about masses and calcs separately (first one, then the other) or to just let observers look for both at the same time.

Diagnostic Performance of Contrast-Enhanced Mammography

Contrast-Enhanced Mammography (CEM) is a functional breast imaging technology. Like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), CEM neovascularization enhancement can improve cancer detection rates, while lack of enhancement may lead to benign determination. The advantages of CEM are dramatically apparent in women with dense breasts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the additional diagnostic value of CEM added to the standard practice of mammography plus ultrasonography(US) in patients with suspicious breast lesions. This study was a single-center prospective-retrospective combined observational study. In the prospective part, women with suspected breast abnormalities undergo prospective CEM evaluation, including acquisition of low energy (LE) images and recombined images (RI) showing enhancement, concurrently with breast US. The retrospective part selected the mammography and breast US data of female patients with suspected breast abnormalities who had previous baseline matching.

Study on Female Patients' Mammographic Texture Features

Mammography is the most common method for breast imaging, and it provides information for model building and analysis. Radiomics applied to mammography has the potential to revolutionize clinical decision-making by providing valuable insights into risk assessment and disease detection. Despite this, the influence of imaging parameters and clinical and biological factors on radiological texture features remains poorly understood. There is a pressing need to overcome the obstacle of system-inherent effects on mammographic images to facilitate the translation of radiological texture features into routine clinical practice by enabling reliable and robust AI-based or AI-aided decision-making. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between imaging parameters, textural features, and clinical and biological information supports the clinical use of AI. The objective of this study is to evaluate AI methods for clinical practice and to study how it relates to clinical factors and biological features.

Contrast-enhanced Spectral Mammography (CESM) Breast Cancer Screening

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how well women may adopt a Contrast-enhanced Spectral Mammography (CESM) as their yearly breast screening test compared to the standard 2-D or 3-D mammogram.