You point about cost is also a good one. In the various articles and papers I have seen excitedly espousing the virtues and advantages of "digital radiography" (and there are indeed many) I have hardly ever seen "cost" being mentioned (and certainly no valid cost-benefit analysis).
There are some analyses, but unfortunately they can go against the grain, at least in some market approaches.
In the accompanying figure (I take the image from cep 07011) imagine the functional costs in services that serve between 5 and 10 studies per day.
Regarding mammographic studies, the CEP 08015I report is very good, a cost calculator for mammography that includes the NHS reference values.
