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| Posted: 8:59 AM Jul 14, 2011
3D mammogram designed
to improve breast cancer detection
This week marks the first time ever where
patients in Georgia can undergo a 3-D mammogram screening.
Reporter: Trishna BegamEmail Address: trishna.begam@wrdw.com | |
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AUGUSTA, GA --- This week marks the first time ever where patients in Georgia can undergo a 3D mammogram screening. It's a fairly new process and the technology was approved for use on patients by the F.D.A in February. In Georgia, GHSU is the only place where patients are being screened using the technology.
Doctors are calling it the new gold standard in breast cancer detection. One of the first patients to be screened through GHSU's new 3D mammography machine is Nicole Aenchbacher. She is the breast health navigator at the hospital. "Today I'm going to have my first mammogram," said Aenchbacher. "Never had a mammogram before."
As she tries to get comfortable, the X-ray camera snaps images from all angles to give doctors a better perspective. Dr. Suzanne Thigpen, the lead mammographer at GHSU said, "We're seeing through the tissue in layers like we've never seen before,"
Doctor Thigpen explains regular 2D images capture the breast in one exposure. You end up with a flat image where the eye can play tricks on you and lumps and tumors are harder to spot. "We just looked at all of the tissue piled on top of each other. You couldn't tell what things are at what level," said Dr. Thigpen.
As she clicks through Aenchbacher's slides she doesn't see anything unusual. She shows us other images that do have trouble spots which weren't spotted with regular 2D imaging. With the new added layers doctors can pinpoint the size, shape and location of a tumor or lump more precisely. "This is as big a jump forward from the time we didn't do mammography, until the time we started doing them," explained Dr. Thigpen. "You can find cancers you can't see otherwise."
Aenchbacher says she was anxious about her first mammogram, but now she'll be able to tell other patients first hand about the experience and the life saving technology. "Probably the positioning was the worst. It was just awkward, but not uncomfortable or painful in anyway."
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer, but with early detection the five year survival rate is 97%.
Insurance companies have to come up with a new code to file this 3D mammogram under since the technology is so new . If you get a mammogram scheduled at GHSU they'll screen you with the 3D machine and you should be covered. Dr. Thigpen believes within a year most hospital will screen for breast cancer with the 3D mammogram.
http://www.wrdw.com/health/headlines/3D_mammogram__125555138.html
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