Contrast enhanced mammography: focus on frequently encountered benign and malignant diagnoses

Contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) is becoming a widely adopted modality in breast imaging over the past few decades and exponentially so over the last few years, with strong evidence of high diagnostic performance in cancer detection. Evidence is also growing indicating comparative performance of CEM to MRI in sensitivity with fewer false positive rates. As application of CEM ranges from potential use in screening dense breast populations to staging of known breast malignancy, increased familiarity with the modality and its implementation, and disease processes encountered becomes of great clinical significance. This review emphasizes expected normal findings on CEM followed by a focus on examples of the commonly encountered benign and malignant pathologies on CEM.

Automated summary

Contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) has become a widely used modality in breast imaging, showing high diagnostic performance in cancer detection. It is comparable to MRI in sensitivity with lower false positive rates. Familiarity with CEM and its implementation is of great clinical significance, as it can be used for screening dense breasts as well as staging known breast malignancies.