BI-RADS is an acronym for Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System, a quality assurance tool originally designed for use with mammography

Mammography

Mammography is the process of using low-energy-X-rays to examine the human breast and is used as a diagnostic and a screening tool....

. The system is a collaborative effort of many health groups but is published and trademarked by the American College of Radiology

American College of Radiology

The American College of Radiology , founded in 1923, is a non-profit professional medical association composed of diagnostic radiologists, radiation oncologists, interventional radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and medical physicists. It is based in Reston, Virginia, with offices in...

 (ACR).

The system is designed to standardize reporting. The document focuses on patient reports used by medical professionals, not "lay reports" that are provided to patients.

Published Documents

The BI-RADS is published by ACR in the form of the BI-RADS Atlas. As of 2007 the Atlas is divided into 3 publications:

• Mammography, Fourth Edition
• Ultrasound
  Ultrasound
  Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is thus not separated from "normal" sound based on differences in physical properties, only the fact that humans cannot hear it. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is...
  
  , First Edition
• MRI
  Magnetic resonance imaging
  Magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear magnetic resonance imaging , or magnetic resonance tomography is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structures...
  
  , First Edition

Assessment Categories

While BI-RADS is a quality control system, in day-to-day usage the term "BI-RADS" refers to the mammography assessment categories. These are standardized numerical codes typically assigned by a radiologist after interpreting a mammogram. This allows for concise and unambiguous understanding of patient records between multiple doctors and medical facilities.

The assessment categories were developed for mammography and later adapted for the MRI and Ultrasound Atlases. The summary of each category, given below, is identical for all 3 modalities.

Category 6 was added in the 4th edition of the Mammography Atlas.

BI-RADS Assessment Categories are:

• 0: Incomplete
• 1: Negative
• 2: Benign finding(s)
• 3: Probably benign
• 4: Suspicious abnormality
• 5: Highly suggestive of malignancy
• 6: Known biopsy – proven malignancy

Breast Composition Categories

• 1: Almost entirely fat
• 2: Scattered fibroglandular densities
• 3: Heterogeneously dense
• 4: Extremely dense

External links

• The American College of Radiology
• BI-RADS Atlas
• Short tutorial, with actual mammogram pictures