THE DEVELOPMENT AND MEANING OF APPROPRIATENESS GUIDELINES

Practice guidelines are important for high quality and economical pati ent care. As gatekeepers to health care, primary care physicians shoul d refer to imaging guidelines when treating a patient with breast dise ase. The American College of Radiology (ACR) has undertaken the task o f publishing guidelines for breast imaging in the hopes of avoiding a plethora of competing, possibly contradictory guidelines written by gr oups less qualified in imaging protocol than the ACR and with the goal of minimizing the dilemmas of interpretation and patient management o ften present in breast imaging.