Only Facility in Southern Indiana Offering Digital Mammography
02/06/2008
Results of Major Breast Cancer Screening Trial Announced
(Evansville, IN) – The American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) has announced that the results of their Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST) show digital mammography detected significantly more cancers than screen film mammography in women age 50 and younger, premenopausal and perimenopausal women and women with dense breasts. The results were reported Friday, September 16 in a special online publication of New England Journal of Medicine. The ACRIN trial, which included 49,582 women at 33 sites across the United States and Canada, is one of the largest breast cancer screening studies ever performed. Dr. Caryn Anderson, Medical Director, St. Mary’s Breast Center, comments, “This definitive study shows that, without question, digital mammography detects more cancers than traditional mammography.”
St. Mary’s Breast Center installed digital mammography in August 2003 and is the only facility in Evansville offering such service. Backed by Computer Aided Detection (CAD), digital mammography offers the most advanced technology available in the fight against breast cancer.
Digital mammography works in the same way as traditional mammograms, but instead of capturing images on X-ray film, which has to be developed, images are captured digitally and immediately sent to a computer monitor. This allows technologists to manipulate the image’s brightness, contrast and magnification to help detect any cancer that may be present.
“The ability to enhance the images is a key advantage to the system,” says Dr. Caryn Anderson. “Because breast tumors and healthy breast tissue are similar in density, up to 10 percent of breast cancers cannot be seen on traditional X-ray film.”
The CAD program acts as an additional pair of eyes looking at the images assisting in the detection of breast cancer. The CAD scans the images and flags suspicious areas for further review by the radiologists. “The CAD can detect subtle changes that help with earlier intervention,” says Dr. Anderson.
Additional benefits offered by this technology include improved visualization and manipulation of images by the radiologist, allowing them to magnify specific areas on the computer screen to aid in detection; increased patient comfort and satisfaction due to decreased need for additional images usually required by film screen mammography; and up to 60 percent less radiation to the patient.
