Digital mammography now being offered at Mercy Health Center

FORT SCOTT, Kan. -- Mercy Health Center has recently upgraded its capability to read mammograms by using digital technology. Last Thursday, the hospital's Breast Imaging Center implemented digital mammography, a relatively new way of taking pictures of the breast to determine if women don't have signs of breast cancer.

Digital mammography takes a digital photo of the breast, allowing doctors to view images on a computer. It replaces the older method of taking images through Xrays.

The digital images are sharper and more detailed than the old X- ray images, allowing the doctor to pick up on potential problem areas, radiologist Charles Medbery said.

He compared the technology upgrade to digital cameras versus film cameras. In digital cameras, the photographer can see the picture they just took. Now, technicians can take a picture, view it and determine if the image came out correctly. Also, the images can be magnified and the contrast increased or decreased. Medbery said the new technology speeds up the process.

Before, it would take a couple of minutes for the picture to develop. To supplement the technology, Mercy has incorporated computer aided detection (CAD), which acts somewhat like an auto-reading device with the machines. The computer scans the image and picks out areas it detects as possibly suspicious. "So, it's sort of like a second pair of eyes looking at it," Medbery said. "We can look at it, the CAD can look at it. If it picks up something we've missed, we can look at it again."

The only other hospital in Southeast Kansas that has the technology is Mercy Hospital in Independence, which is also a facility of Mercy Health System of Kansas.

Digital equipment has been available for several years, but studies showed the newer technology wasn't any better than the old, Medbery said. Last year, however, a study found the digital readings were better for patients who had what doctors call "dense" breasts. Breast density is measured by the ratio of actual breast tissue to fatty tissue in the breast. A breast is largely fat, with actual breast tissue dispersed in the fat, Medbery said. The more breast tissue there is compared to amount of fat, the denser the breast.

Denser breasts make it harder to read the mammogram, he said. "In a dense breast, we can see things we couldn't even see before," Medbery said. The technology costs $385,000, considerably costlier than the older equipment. To pay for the cost, Mercy has had to increase its charge for the procedure. However, most insurance plans cover the mammogram and Medicare usually covers the cost of the procedure. According to Mercy officials, self-paid mammograms are rare.

For woman wondering if the digital upgrade will mean less discomfort during the mammogram, forget about it, he said. "From a patient point of view, the compression, which is a major thing women complain about, is the same." Medbery said women tend to become concerned when the hospital calls them back and instructs them to come back for another mammogram, because they think doctors have discovered something bad.

However, he said, 80 to 90 percent of callbacks translate into really nothing at all. Nevertheless, there are times when they want to see the woman again because they see something suspicious.

Medbery said the new machines, in the long-run, may decrease the chance of callbacks. Right now, the digital technology increases callbacks. That's because doctors can see more with the higherquality images compared to the X- rays, and they may need to bring the patient back to take more images. There is interest in the new technology among women in the area. From the time plans were announced to acquire the technology, more women have been calling to schedule mammographies, Mercy director of Diagnostic Imaging Becky Williams said.

"Women understand the benefits of digital mammography and are eager to utilize this improved service," she said.

Women age 50 and over should have mammograms each year, according to the American Cancer Society. One in eight women has a chance of getting breast cancer sometime during her life. It doesn't mean that one out of every eight who have a mammogram performedwill have cancer. In Kansas, about 1,800 are diagnosed with the cancer and more than 400 die from it each year.