Abstract
With the aim of formulating an official standard of quality assurance, a questionnaire study of quality assurance for breast cancer screening by ultrasound examination was carried out, focusing on applicants for the 2010 training courses sponsored by the Japan Association of Breast and Thyroid Sonology. The training courses for technicians were carried out ６times in 2010.The questionnaires were compiled by the Quality Assurance Subcommittee, sent to all applicants before the training courses, and collected afterwards. The respondents belonged to169 institutions, of which two common kinds were noted, one type having 1,000 to 5,000 screening examinee and the other having 100 to 500 respondents. At many institutions, 5 or fewer examiners performed examinations. At institutions where there were many examiners, most were technicians. The time required for one examination was 8.7 min on average, and the time taken from entering the room until leaving was 12.7 minutes. Comparison with the previous examinations was performed in 84% of the respondents. In 79% of the institutions the pictures were stored in electrical recording systems. Confirmation of the results at the referring hospitals was carried out in only 30% of the respondents. The present results indicate the importance of quality control for technicians who perform ultrasound examinations and also the doctors who evaluate the pictures. Standardization of both the ultrasound examination procedure and decision of the results is also imperative.
