Assessing and Improving Radiologists’ Mammography Interpretive Skills (AIM)

Studies have revealed considerable variability in the interpretation of mammography among radiologists in the U.S. The AIM study is a collaborative effort between CMR and other Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) member sites, and was designed to address this variability by attempting to understand and improve the interpretive performance of radiologists.

To accomplish this goal, three specific objectives were developed for the AIM study. The first objective is to determine the effects of radiologists’ interpretive volume on clinical interpretive performance, using data from the FAVOR study. The second objective is to create assessment tests that consist of representative screening mammography examinations from community practice. These tests will be used to evaluate whether prevalence of cancer and/or prevalence of obvious, intermediate, and subtle mammography findings influences performance; and to determine the extent to which performance on assessment test sets is associated with volume of examinations and clinical mammography performance, as measured by BCSC data. The final objective is to develop educational programs designed to improve radiologists’ mammography interpretive performance. These programs will be based, in part, on the results of the assessment tests from the second objective.

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