Study on the evolution of the numbers of mammography systems installed

Abstract

The mammography equipment used for breast cancer screening in Japan must meet the standards of the Japan Radiological Society. Mammography is considered to have been replaced by digital systems, and soft-copy diagnosis has become mainstream. However, there have been no reports of investigations of system replacement in Japan. In this study we investigated the replacement of mammography systems by counting the numbers of systems from 2009 to 2019. The data used in this study were obtained from the “Monthly New Medical Journal”, which contains a list of mammography facilities during the 11 years from 2009 to 2019. During that period, the numbers of mammography systems increased, the numbers of analog systems decreased, and the numbers of digital systems increased. In 2019, 53.2% of the systems were analog systems, and 46.8% were digital systems, but since some FPD installation data were missing, we assume that the number of digital systems was about the same or even higher than the number of analog systems. This study is a compilation of references, and although the actual numbers of vendor installations and the numbers of installations by prefecture in it may differ from the actual number, it is useful as a means of understanding the trends in system replacement from 2009 to 2019.