Continued expansion and enhancement of the Mammography Tumor
Registry (MTR) in Washington State is proposed in order to build a
foundation for collaborative interdisciplinary research on
mammography performance in a community setting. New methods for
measuring the performance of mammography will be developed which
will rely only on the dates of diagnosis and mammograms and
characteristics of the tumor, in order to obviate the use of
mammographers' coding of the reason for the mammogram,
symptoms, assessment, or recommendations for follow up. The
methods will be evaluated by analyzing variation in performance
among facilities using new and standard methods as well as by using a
simulation model to generate a gold standard. Using these measures,
the roles of tumor biology, breast density, and hormone use in the
failure of mammography will be investigated. The MTR will be
expanded by adding 20 facilities selected for their potential
contribution to research goals, and enhanced by adding a pathologist,
surgeon, medical oncologist/cancer geneticist, and statistician to the
investigator team. The database will be enhanced by including
measurement of tumor biology (cell proliferation and genetic markers)
in selected cases in which characteristics of the patient and
mammograms are known. A pilot study is proposed to assess the
feasibility of adding electronically transmitted pathology data directly
to the MTR to allow timely feedback to mammography facilities to
assist them in MQSA compliance. An ancillary study is proposed
involving retrospective review of prior films ofrandontly selected cases
diagnosed in TNM stage III or IV despite screening in the preceding
2-26 month period.
Error Notice
The database may currently be offline for maintenance and should be operational soon. If not, we have been notified of this error and will be reviewing it shortly.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
- The DCCPS Team.