About us
Overview
The BreastScreen Reader Assessment Strategy (BREAST) is collaboration between The University of Sydney and Cancer Institute NSW. It is a program devised and implemented in Australia to enhance the performance of radiologists and other clinicians involved with reading mammograms. Its main aim is to allow clinicians to assess their performance in their own reading environment and then receive immediate feedback including scores in lesion sensitivity, specificity and ROC figures of merit. BREAST is able to achieve this by offering mammography and tomosynthesis test sets that have been designed for self-assessment and the continuing professional development of radiologists and radiology trainees, and any clinicians involved in breast reading. Feedback image files specific to each reader are immediately provided which indicate correct and incorrect decisions on images, and de-identified raw data on performances are stored centrally. These features make BREAST a powerful radiology training and research tool.
Aims
The two overarching aims of BREAST are to:
• Transform the mammographic and tomographic detection of breast cancer by a) providing an online platform for Australian screen-reading mammography radiologists that enables self-assessment with immediate feedback and b) identifying reasons for screen reading errors and create innovative solutions to reduce error rates; and
• Provide an evidence-based solution that will enable expert evaluation of novel breast imaging technologies.
BREAST will meet these objectives by:
• Providing a self-assessment training tool for breast screen-readers across the country;
• Defining standards of reader performance in test sets across clinical services; and
• Developing a resource for research around the perception and optimisation of breast cancer detection.