In recent years, deep learning has showcased substantial promise in breast cancer diagnosis via mammograms. However, the integration of longitudinal changes between consecutive mammograms, which clinicians frequently consider for diagnosis, remains under-explored. In this study, we introduce an novel method that leverages crossattention mechanisms to capture longitudinal information between consecutive mammograms taken at various time intervals. Our method’s efficacy was assessed using a case-control internal dataset consisting of 590 cases. Preliminary results underscore its superiority over models relying solely on a single ”current” mammogram exam and those that merely combine features extracted from ”current” and ”prior” mammograms. By harnessing the power of longitudinal data, our model achieved enhanced diagnostic performance.
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