The American College of Radiology's mammography lexicon: barking up the wrong tree?

Abstract

Mammography reports are often wordy and inconclusive. To solve this problem, the American College of Radiology (ACR) created the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) with a lexicon of specifically defined words, designed to be used, exclusive of any other terminology, to describe all significant breast imaging findings. The premise for developing BI-RADS was that strict verbal uniformity is a prerequisite for a national mammography data base and will also result in concise, directive reporting. Although this approach seems reasonable at first glance, BI-RADS, in my opinion, has several fundamental flaws.