Mammography Facility Characteristics Associated With Accuracy Of Screening

Some characteristics of mammography facilities are associated with the accuracy of interpretation of screening mammograms, according to a study published online June 10 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Previous studies have suggested that patient characteristics, such as age, are associated with variations in the accuracy of screening mammograms. Similarly, characteristics of the radiologist who interprets the mammograms, such as his or her reading experience, are associated with variations in accuracy. The impact of the type of facility or its characteristics on mammogram accuracy was unknown, but the information could help identify better practices and better places to obtain a mammogram.

source: Medical News Today

Sectra MicroDose Mammography honored with 2008 Medical Design Excellence Award

The IT and medical-technology company Sectra has been honored with 2008 Medical Design Excellence Award for Sectra MicroDose Mammography™. The system features superior image quality, an ergonomic design combined with a unique photon-counting technology enabling the lowest radiation dose on the market.

The jury’s motivation was: “Sectra MicroDose Mammography with its ultra low-dose radiation output and elegant ergonomics clearly stood out with regard to both the criteria patient safety and ease-of use. Aesthetics, while not absolutely critical, is also important and the elegant European form factor was another positive.”

source: SECTRA

Canadian Breast Cancer Network Releases 2008 Breast Cancer Wait Times

WINNIPEG, June 5 /CNW/ - New data collected by the Canadian
Breast Cancer Network (CBCN) shows that not all Canadian
women are receiving equal access to breast cancer
treatment. The CBCN presented the 2008 Breast Cancer
Wait Time in Canada Report Card findings
today at the 5th World Conference on Breast Cancer in
Winnipeg. "This Report Card is a call to action for
concerned organizations and individuals to work
collaboratively to find solutions to breast cancer
issues," said Diana Ermel, president of the CBCN.
"Breast cancer wait times and accessibility to
medications must remain high on the public
agenda to improve access and quality of care."
While many jurisdictions are working on innovative
solutions to shorten wait times, there continue
to be significant gaps in the current standards of
care across the country. The Report Card provides
an overview of wait times for diagnosis and
treatment of breast cancer in Canada.

source: newswire.ca

Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging (BSGI) Found to Be Highly Sensitive for Early Stage Breast Cancer

NEWPORT NEWS, Va., May 29 /PRNewswire/ -- According to an article in the June issue of Radiology, researchers at The George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. have shown that Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging (BSGI) is highly sensitive in detecting the presence of cancer. The researchers determined that BSGI was a useful detection tool and that it was as sensitive as MRI for most cancers and perhaps more sensitive for ductal carcinoma in-situ, an early stage of breast cancer.

BSGI, molecular imaging of the breast utilizing a high-resolution, small-field-of-view gamma camera, is an increasingly utilized adjunct imaging modality for the diagnosis of breast cancer. Initial studies with this imaging technique report sensitivities similar to MRI with a higher specificity -- which is the ability of a test to show when disease is not present.

source: PRNewswire

Naviscan PET Systems and Rockville PET Imaging Partner to Bring a New Breast Imaging Technology to New York

SAN DIEGO, May 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Naviscan PET Systems, Inc., a privately held company that manufactures and develops high-resolution PET scanners, announced today the newest installation of the PEM Flex(TM) Solo II scanner at Rockville PET Imaging, P.C. in Rockville Centre, New York. This installation marks the beginning of a multi-unit deal between Naviscan and the operators of Rockville PET Imaging that will bring organ specific, molecular imaging technology to multiple centers throughout the New York state area.

"We are pleased and excited at the growing strategic relationship between Rockville PET Imaging and Naviscan PET Systems," said Paul J. Mirabella, Chairman and CEO of Naviscan. "Both of us believe that this leading-edge technology will significantly and positively influence the effective management of breast cancer patients. Moreover, this multi-unit order represents a highly visible commitment on the part of Rockville PET Imaging to provide differential, personalized healthcare and diagnostic services throughout the greater New York metropolitan area."

source: Yahoo Finance (press release)

MRI Use May Explain Part Of The Trend In Rising Mastectomies Say Mayo Researchers

The number of women undergoing mastectomy (total breast removal) for early-stage breast cancer has increased in the last three years at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The increase follows a steady decline during the prior seven years.

Researchers say the reasons for this increase are unclear. But they have determined that women at Mayo Clinic who underwent diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) prior to surgery to treat early-stage breast cancer had a higher rate of mastectomy, compared to women who did not have an MRI.

source: Medical News Today

Supplemental Breast Ultrasound Boosts Cancer Detection

Among women at high risk of developing breast cancer, breast ultrasound combined with mammography may detect more cancers than mammography alone, according to results of a multicenter trial that included UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers.

Overall, 40 participants were diagnosed with breast cancer. Of those cases, a dozen lesions were suspicious only on ultrasound and eight were suspicious on both ultrasound and mammography.

The most recent findings, presented in the current issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, are from the first round of screening in the American College of Radiology Imaging Network's ACRIN-6666 trial. More than 2,800 women at high risk of developing breast cancer participated. The median age of the participants was 55 years and more than half had a personal history of breast cancer.

source: Medical News Today

Siemens To Showcase Full Field Digital Mammography System And Other Breast Imaging Innovations At Symposium Mammographicum 2008

At Symposium Mammographicum 2008, in Lille, France, Siemens will be showcasing the latest innovations in full field digital mammography and breast imaging. In addition to the new MAMMOMAT Inspiration, the ACUSON S2000 ultrasound system and the MammoReport workstation will be displayed on stand 11/12.

The MAMMOMAT Inspiration is a full field digital mammography system designed to meet the needs of the patient, the user and clinician. New compression technologies, paddle design and mood lighting offer the latest in patient comfort, plus the isocentric rotation of the X-ray tube and examination functionality have been enhanced to offer easy and fast workflow to improve patient throughput. Furthermore, the MAMMOMAT Inspiration is a future proof solution for stereotactic biopsy and to provide 3D imaging using tomosynthesis.

source: MedicalNewsToday

Six-Month Follow-Up Diagnostic Mammograms Recommended for Women with Probably Benign Lesions

Radiologists can, with confidence, recommend a six-month follow-up diagnostic mammogram rather than an immediate biopsy for patients with “probably benign” breast lesions, a new study emphasizes.

The study found that six-month short-interval follow-up examinations had an 83% sensitivity, which is similar to the sensitivity of other diagnostic mammograms, said Erin J. Aiello Bowles, MPH, lead author of the study from the Group Health Center for Health Studies. High sensitivity means identifying a high proportion of “true positives” (actual cancer cases) and a low proportion of “false negatives” (cases mistakenly deemed benign).

source: American Roentgen Ray Society

Alternative To Biopsy For Women With Probably Benign Lesions

Radiologists can, with confidence, recommend a six-month follow-up diagnostic mammogram rather than an immediate biopsy for patients with "probably benign" breast lesions, a new study emphasizes.

The study found that six-month short-interval follow-up examinations had an 83% sensitivity, which is similar to the sensitivity of other diagnostic mammograms, said Erin J. Aiello Bowles, MPH, lead author of the study from the Group Health Center for Health Studies. High sensitivity means identifying a high proportion of "true positives" (actual cancer cases) and a low proportion of "false negatives" (cases mistakenly deemed benign).

source: Medical News Today

DR Systems’ Integration of Mammography with PACS to Be Showcased at ACR Meeting

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DR Systems will be demonstrating its industry-leading approach to integrating digital mammography into its top-ranked Unity™ RIS/PACS at the American College of Radiology’s 33rd National Conference on Breast Cancer.

The conference will be held May 8-10 in Orlando, Fla. DR Systems will be at Booth 103 in the Coquita Exhibit Hall.

Nearly 50 facilities nationwide have adopted, or are in the process of adopting, DR Systems’ sophisticated integration of PACS and digital mammography.

DR Systems avoids the problems of reading and archiving digital mammograms on a stand-alone mammography workstation by tightly integrating digital mammograms with its PACS. This approach saves capital costs and floor space in the radiology department and better leverages the institution’s investment in its PACS. It also makes radiologists more efficient and productive.

sourc: BusinessWire

Sectra: Women in Brussels Provided Choice of Mammography with Unmatched Lowest Radiation Dose

Brussels Menopause Center, a private clinic for women’s health in Belgium, has chosen Sectra MicroDose Mammography to offer women in Brussels mammography examinations at the lowest radiation dose on the market. The clinic is first in the Brussels region to offer women this benefit.

Brussels Menopause Center is a highly specialized women’s health clinic. Specialties include gynecology, mammography, and detection and treatment of osteoporosis. The clinic performs approximately 7,000 screening and clinical mammography examinations annually.

The clinic is digitizing its mammography operations and will implement Sectra’s total solution for digital mammography, including Sectra MicroDose Mammography and Sectra Breast Imaging PACS (a system for managing and archiving digital breast images). With Sectra’s solution, Brussels Menopause Center will be able to offer women in Brussels mammography examinations with a significantly lower radiation dose than any other system on the market. Digitizing the mammography operations will also increase workflow efficiency and provide radiologists with instant access to images and information regardless of location.

source: Business Wire

Carestream Health Announces Canadian Orders for its Mammograpgy System

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Carestream Health, Inc., has signed contracts for its computed radiography-based mammography solutions with healthcare providers in Canada. The KODAK DIRECTVIEW CR Mammography feature is available for order with new or existing CR 850/950/975 systems and the recently announced Classic and Elite CR systems. These flexible CR platforms can be used for both mammography and general radiography exams.

The following mammography providers are among those that have placed orders for the CR Mammography feature:
Courtice Medical Center (Courtice, Ontario) purchased a KODAK DIRECTVIEW CR 850 with the CR Mammography feature as a dedicated mammography unit.

Insight Medical Imaging (Spruce Grove, Alberta) purchased two KODAK DIRECTVIEW Elite CR Systems with the CR Mammography feature.

full press release at Carestream

Should we be concerned about mammography utilization in the Medicare population?

The May issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR) examines current trends in mammography utilization in the Medicare population - specifically, how digital mammography may be affecting the rate of women being screened for breast cancer, as well as validating data from recent reports that a decline in the overall screening rate for women over age 40 exists.

Recent Trends in Mammography Utilization in the Medicare Population: Is There a Cause for Concern? is authored by Vijay M. Rao, M.D., David C. Levin, M.D., Laurence Parker, Ph.D., and Andrea J. Frangos, M.S., and uses data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - which supplies insight into utilization, types of examinations, and providers of services - rather than only survey data, which does not distinguish a difference between screening and diagnostic mammography, from which to draw conclusions.

source: Medicexchange, UK

St John's Hospital Receives First MAMMOMAT Inspiration In The UK

St John's Hospital in Livingston, part of NHS Lothian's University Hospitals Division, has installed the first Siemens new generation full-field digital mammography system in the UK.

Part of the 9 system order via the Scottish Procurement Framework, the MAMMOMAT Inspiration was recently designed with the input of healthcare professionals to create an easy-to-operate and patient-friendly system. Offering quick exposure and display times, the MAMMOMAT Inspiration speeds up patient throughput and provides detailed digital images for diagnosis.

The St John's Hospital installation has replaced an old analogue system, meaning that examination times are now shorter and deliver improved departmental efficiency. The introduction of a digital system has also eliminated the need for processing chemistry and traditional X-ray film.

source: MedicalNewsToday

Mammograms Benefit Women Into Their 70s

New research from The Netherlands suggests that mammograms benefit women up to the age of 75 by cutting deaths; the researchers claim this is the first study to show this because until the late 1990s, few women over 70 were undergoing mammogram screening.

The study is the work of Jacques Fracheboud, a senior researcher at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, and colleagues, who presented their findings at the 6th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-6) in Berlin, on Friday 18th of April.

In many countries, breast screening programmes stop at the age of 70. However, in 1998 The Netherlands extended the cut off age to 75.

source: MedicalNewsToday

Use Of Screening Breast MRIs Endorsed For Some Women

The American Society of Breast Disease's Consensus Committee confirms that based on the most current data available, screening MRI is appropriate as an adjunct to mammography, clinical breast examination, and ultrasonography for breast cancer detection in women at high risk of breast cancer.

The Committee concurred with recently revised guidelines issued by the American Cancer Society that recommend annual MRI screening based on evidence to include: BRCA mutation, first-degree relatives of BRCA carriers who are untested, and women with a lifetime risk ~20-20% or greater as defined by BRCAPRO or other models that are largely dependent on family history.

source: MedicalNewsToday

MRI before surgery leads to better-adapted treatment for breast cancer

Berlin, Germany: The early use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in women diagnosed with breast cancer can often lead to a better adapted surgical approach to the tumour, a scientist told the 6th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-6) today (Wednesday April 16). Dr. David Martinez-Cecilia, a surgeon from the General Surgery Service, directed by Prof. Rufian-Peña, in the Hospital Universitario Reina Sofia, Cordoba, Spain, said that this technique should become standard in determining the stage of the tumour before any operation.

Dr. Martinez-Cecilia and his team studied 249 patients who were undergoing surgery for breast cancer, and carried out routine MRI as soon as a biopsy showed malignancy. If additional lesions were discovered, a further biopsy was carried out on them.

“Using MRI, we found 20 additional malignant lesions in 18 patients”, he said, “and that meant that for 15 patients we were able to change the surgical treatment to one which took care of all the tumours, as opposed to the single one that had originally been diagnosed.”

source: European CanCer Organization Press Release

MAMMOMAT Inspiration Designed To Optimise Breast Screening Procedures Via Smoother Workflow And Increased Patient Comfort

The first Full-Field Direct Digital Mammography system from Siemens has been unveiled. The MAMMOMAT Inspiration has been developed from the input and inspiration of healthcare professionals to combine speed, superior image quality and examination comfort.

The new system is fresh in design to meet the needs of the patient, the user and clinician. New compression technologies, paddle design and mood lighting offer the latest in patient comfort; the isocentric rotation of the X-ray tube and examination functionality have been enhanced to offer easy and fast workflow to improve patient throughput and image resolution of the whole breast is advanced for detailed diagnosis.

source: MedicalNewsToday

Report from ARRS: Telemammography over Internet proves feasible, cost-effective

By: H. A. Abella

Nearly 30,000 cases and three years of experience have confirmed that the transmission and interpretation of digital mammography exams to and from a remote location through commercially available high-speed cable Internet is feasible, safe, reliable, and cost-effective, according to a Columbia University study.

"There haven't been any glitches since we began, but we have made long-distance transmission better and faster," said principal investigator Dr. Alan R. Melton, an assistant professor of radiology at Columbia. "We are refining the system, establishing online dictation, increasing transmission speeds, increasing the efficiency of the routing, and diminishing downtime."

source: Diagnostic Imaging

New York Times Examines Radiologists' Transition To Digital Mammograms

An increasing number of women undergoing breast cancer screenings are being recalled for additional testing as radiologists are learning to interpret new digital mammograms after switching from traditional X-ray tests, the New York Times reports. According to the Times, 32% of mammography clinics have at least one digital machine, compared with 10% of mammography clinics two years ago.

Some radiologists have said that digital mammograms allow the magnifier contrast and magnification to potentially "see things that were blurry or maybe even invisible" in traditional X-rays, but they add that "it takes time to learn the ropes" of the new technology.

source: Medical News Today

A Diagnosis of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Doesn’t Always Mean Cancer Spread

Triple-negative breast cancers are a heterogeneous group and may not always be associated with lymph node spread, a new study shows.

The study of 145 triple negative breast cancers (i.e, cancer which is estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative and HER2-negative) in 128 women found that about 23% were moderate or low-grade lesions, said Cecilia Mercado, MD, of New York University School of Medicine, and an author of the study.

Triple negative breast cancer is found in about 15% of breast cancer patients and the patients are usually younger.

The study found that 11 of the 145 cancers had a low histologic grade. Only one of these patients had evidence that their cancer had spread into their lymph nodes. Twenty-three cancers were moderate grade lesions; only five of these 23 had spread into the lymph nodes. That compares to 37 of 111 cancers with a high histologic grade which had lymph node metastases, Dr. Mercado said.

source: ARRS Press Release

MRI Changes Breast Cancer Treatment Choice; Increases Time To Treatment

More than a quarter of breast cancer patients who had an MRI examination before their initial surgical treatment had their treatment change, according to a study out of Yale University School of Medicine.

The study included 110 who had an MRI examination before treatment and 374 who did not undergo an MRI examination. "MRI prompted biopsy of 70 sites in 44 patients, said Carol Lee, MD, an author of the study, now at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NY. Sixteen additional sites of cancer were found in 13 (12%) women, she said.

Surgical treatment was changed in 31 (28%) cases, she added. Fifteen patients had mastectomy rather than lumpectomy. Six had more extensive lumpectomy and three had treatment for cancer that was detected in the opposite breast.

source:American Roentgen Ray Society

Elderly Benefit From Screening Mammography

Although guidelines keep changing regarding screening mammography in elderly patients, those older than 70 years old continue to benefit from this exam, showing that with frequent mammograms breast cancers can be found sooner, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Jacobi Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in Bronx, NY.

“Our initial interest was sparked by the changing mammographic guidelines in the elderly age group and the differences in the guidelines between organizations including the American Cancer Society and American College of Radiology,” said Jason Salsamendi, MD, lead author of the study. “We also noticed that we were performing a significant number of screening mammograms in elderly patients at our institution and became curious about the incidence of occult breast cancer in this age group,” he said.

source: RedOrbit

In Shift to Digital, More Repeat Mammograms

DENISE GRADY

It is a phone call that women dread. Something is not quite right on the mammogram: come back for another one. But don’t worry, the script goes, most repeat tests wind up normal.

Still, most women know someone who has breast cancer, and even the calmest, most rational minds may think the worst when summoned back to the clinic.

At many centers, these nerve-racking calls are on the rise, at least temporarily — the price of progress as more and more radiologists switch from traditional X-ray film to digital mammograms, in which the X-ray images are displayed on a computer monitor.

source article: Blue Ridge Now