Breast cancer detection with transillumination and mammography.

This prospective study of 1239 women compares the breast cancer detecting abilities of state-of-the-art mammography and transillumination. Mammography was found to be the superior technique, detecting 80 (96%) of the 83 pathologically proven cancers, while transillumination detected only 44 (53%). Among cancers having the best prognosis, transillumination was even less accurate relative to mammography, detecting only 43% of malignancies that had not yet spread to axillary lymph nodes and only 19% of the nonpalpable cancers and cancers smaller than 1 cm, whereas mammography detected over 90% in each of these categories. None of the three cancers missed by mammography were detected by transillumination. Clearly, transillumination is not an acceptable substitute for mammography in the detection and diagnosis of breast cancer. Therefore, the current commercial promotion of transillumination seems to be premature.