On the heels of the recent announcement of the results of the highly touted Digital Mammography Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST), computer aided detection vendor R2 Technology is hoping the results will give the CAD market a boost as well. The study's results, which were released last week, showed that digital mammography significantly increases breast cancer detection for women who are under 50, premenopausal or who have dense breasts. CAD technology, however, was not a part of the study.

"Results of this study are very likely to accelerate the use of digital mammography among clinicians," said John Pavlidis, president and CEO, R2 Technology. "We believe that this also will likely increase the use of computer aided detection, which can be seamlessly integrated into a digital mammography environment."

To support its cause, R2 has sited five independent prospective clinical studies from academic and community practices which have shown that the use of R2's CAD resulted in 6.6 percent to 19.5 percent more cancers detected. Independent studies comparing CAD performance on architectural distortions, cases graded by difficulty, and small invasive breast cancers all demonstrate the advantage of R2's market-leading CAD algorithm, R2 said.