Watch our commercial about
digital mammography,
breast cancer or
listen about
digital mammography.
The Alexandria Clinic is proud to announce the addition of digital
mammography!
The results of a major clinical study of nearly 50,000 women (The
American College of Radiology Imaging Network’s Digital Mammographic
Imaging Screening Trial, or ACRIN-DMIST) showed that digital mammography
is more accurate than conventional film-screen mammography in detecting
breast cancer in three groups of women: women under 50, pre- and peri-menopausal
women, and women with dense breasts. Digital mammograms are 15 percent
more accurate among women under age 50 or not yet in menopause, and 11
percent more accurate among women with dense breasts, the study found.
Dense breasts contain more glands and ligaments -- and less fat.
Dense breast tissue appears as a solid white area on a mammogram. Tumors
also are dense and appear as solid white areas on mammograms. This can
make it difficult to detect a tumor because it looks a lot like the
dense tissue around it. Young women are more likely to have dense
breasts than older women. After menopause, breast tissue tends to lose
density and contain more fat.*
DMIST investigators also found that digital mammography offers
reduced radiation dosage over film mammography. Another advantage to
digital, they wrote, “is use of a lower average dose of radiation
without a compromise in diagnostic accuracy."
Digital mammography provides a number of benefits for both the
patient and the imaging facility. For the patient, DMIST demonstrated
that digital mammography offers benefits to a portion of the screening
population, as mentioned above. Additionally, digital mammography
enables the technologist to immediately see if the image was taken
correctly; freeing the patient from waiting until films are developed or
from being called back for additional x-ray exposures after they’ve gone
home.
The imaging facility using digital mammography benefits because x-ray
film and processing is eliminated, as is the need to store and retrieve
x-ray films. Mammography images can be displayed on an FDA 510(k)
cleared computer workstation and monitor, allowing the radiologist to
magnify and adjust the contrast of the image or optimize a particular
area. This can reduce the number of extra images and exposures that are
sometimes required during the diagnostic process. Moreover, since the
images can be stored and retrieved electronically, it is easy to
facilitate long-distance consultations with other mammography
specialists.
* Source:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mammogram/AN01137 |
