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Introduction: Performance indicators for organised breast cancer screening programmes in Italy, 2011-2019, were evaluated., Materials and Methods: Aggregated data were gathered by the National Centre for Screening Monitoring from over 150 regional or sub-regional screening programmes in Italy. Invitation and examination coverage, participation rate (PR), recall rate (RR), detection rate, positive predictive value (PPV) for the target population as a whole (women aged 50-69), by 5-year age-class, geographical macro-area (North, Centre, South-Islands with the exception of three Regions for missing/uncomplete data) and Region were estimated., Results: Coverage showed an increasing positive trend, especially in the South-Islands, and PR was stable all over Italy. On the other hand, an increasing RR and decreasing PPV were recorded, especially at the first screening test and in some regions., Discussion and Conclusions: The positive increase in coverage is accompanied by a worsening of some performance indicators for which a better resource allocation and staff training are required. For this reason, further and continuous monitoring is mandatory.

Introduction: In Italy, due to increasing healthcare budget and staff shortages, the recently created regional mammography screening programmes were established under worse radiology practice quality criteria than the previously created programmes., Methods: Using available data from a national questionnaire survey conducted at the end of 2013 and involving 222 responder radiologists, we compared the main professional quality standards of radiologists working in the screening programmes established during the period 2000-2012 with those working in the screening programmes created from 1990 to 1999., Results: The former reported more years of clinical experience in breast imaging and a greater clinical mammogram reading volume than the latter. Conversely, they dedicated less working time to breast imaging, were less likely to participate in the diagnostic assessment of screen-detected lesions, to work in large-staffed screening centres, and to have a screening and a total mammogram reading volume (SMRV and TMRV) ≥ 5000 per year., Conclusions: The level of most professional quality criteria of Italian mammography screening radiologists has decreased over time. As SMRV and TMRV are important predictors of diagnostic accuracy, we can expect a lower interpretation performance of radiologists working in the recently created screening programmes.