Mammography at UNC Health Care goes all digital
CHAPEL HILL - Starting Sept. 5, all mammography performed by UNC Health Care will be done with digital breast imaging equipment. With this move, UNC Hospitals becomes the first large tertiary medical center in North Carolina to completely eliminate film screen mammography in favor of the newer digital breast imaging technology.
Aug. 30, 2007
Mammography at UNC Health Care goes all digital
CHAPEL HILL - Starting Sept. 5, all mammography performed by UNC Health Care will be done with digital breast imaging equipment.
With this move, UNC Hospitals becomes the first large tertiary medical center in North Carolina to completely eliminate film screen mammography in favor of the newer digital breast imaging technology.
“This is good news for women, because it means we will be able to detect more breast cancers at earlier stages in their development. Earlier detection allows us to begin treatment earlier and greatly improves a woman’s chances of a complete recovery,” said Dr. Cherie Kuzmiak, UNC’s director of breast imaging.
In addition, Kuzmiak said, women will benefit because digital mammography exams take about 35 percent less time to do than film mammography exams. A study published in 2006 found that film screen mammography exams take an average of almost 22 minutes, while digital exams take only about 14 minutes. Digital mammography takes less time because it acquires images more quickly and because there is no waiting time for film to develop, Kuzmiak said.
Digital mammography will be provided at three locations on the UNC Hospitals campus in Chapel Hill: The N.C. Clinical Cancer Center (aka, the Gravely Building), the N.C. Women’s Hospital and the Ambulatory Care Center. Women who would like to schedule an appointment for mammography at UNC should call (919) 966-1081.
Kuzmiak said UNC Health Care decided to move to all-digital mammography based on the results of a nationwide clinical trial, led by UNC’s Dr. Etta Pisano, that tested the accuracy of digital mammography versus film screen mammography. The study, called the ACRIN Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST), was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2005. It found that digital mammography detected up to 28 percent more cancers than screen film mammography in women ages 50 and younger, premenopausal and perimenopausal women, and women with dense breasts.
Pisano, who was UNC’s director of breast imaging at the time of the study, now serves as vice dean for academic affairs in the UNC School of Medicine and director of the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center.
"Since I was the leader of the study that proved the benefit of digital mammography over film, it is quite gratifying to me that UNC has made this transition to digital mammography,” Pisano said. “This will benefit women with dense breasts where film mammography is not as good at finding early breast cancer."
Media contact: Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-6047 or scrayton@unch.unc.edu
ABOUT UNC HEALTH CARE
The UNC Health Care System is a not-for-profit integrated health care system owned by the state of North Carolina and based in Chapel Hill. It exists to further the teaching mission of the University of North Carolina and to provide state-of-the-art patient care. UNC Health Care is comprised of UNC Hospitals, ranked consistently among the best medical centers in the country; the UNC School of Medicine, a nationally eminent research institution; community practices; home health and hospice services in seven central North Carolina counties; and Rex Healthcare and its provider network in Wake County.
