October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Women, aged 40 and older are encouraged to get their annual digital screening mammograms. Many community organizations, such as the Susan Komen Foundations and American Cancer Society send out news and encouragement to all women for screening and treatment for breast cancer.
At Memorial Healthcare System, women have access to digital mammography, breast ultrasound, breast MRI, digital tomosynthesis mammography, and breast PET Mammography (PEM). These are the newest available technologies that Breast Imaging radiologists use to screen, diagnose, and follow women for breast disease.
Annually, approximately 30,000 women are screened with digital mammography at Memorial Healthcare System. New research shows that women with very dense breast tissue carry a four-fold increased risk for breast cancer. Therefore, those women are also offered breast ultrasound. While mammography is the gold standard for screening for breast cancer, breast ultrasound plays a significant complementary role in women with dense tissue or those who have other risk factors.
Each breast imaging patient at Memorial Healthcare System gets a “risk assessment profile.” This allows the physicians, who are board certified, sub- specialist breast imaging radiologists, to care for the individual patient based on her personal risk profile. For example, women with low-average risk and fatty breast tissue may need only screening mammography. Another patient who has dense breast tissue and a strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer may need evaluation with diagnostic mammography, ultrasound and MRI of the breasts each year. The risk stratification is part of each womans personal breast care.
A new tool, called Digital Tomosynthesis Mammography (TOMO) has been available at Memorial Healthcare System for over a year. This is a next generation, low-dose digital mammogram that allows physicians to literally page through the breast tissue millimeter by millimeter. Its analogous to looking at just the cover of a book versus reading each page of the book. Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood has completed accrual for the implant screening TOMO trial in July and will open a new FDA screening TOMO trial of up to 450 patients starting in October November, 2009. This trial is performed in conjunction with Massachusetts General Hospital researchers.
Finally, Breast PET Mammography (PEM) is an FDA-approved breast imaging tool that is used in patients who either previously or currently have breast cancer as well as women who have a difficult mammogram and are at high risk.
PEM stands for Positron Emission Mammography, which is a new, advanced application of PET scanning. PEM scans image of only the breast tissue and look for abnormalities that are 1.5-2mm size. The abnormalities that are identified on PEM can be mapped for biopsy and imaging can be used to follow patients being treated for breast cancer. For example, PEM can be used to take an initial picture of a tumor in the breast and then the patient can be re-imaged 7 and 14 days after only one chemotherapy treatment to assess whether the chemotherapy is effectively targeting the breast cancer cells. The hope is that this pilot research trial at Memorial Healthcare System will show promising data that such imaging can provide very early response to the appropriate medications. Such early information, before the physician can feel or see the tumor shrinking, may significantly alter patient treatments in the future. This trial is performed in conjunction with the University of Chicago researchers.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Women, aged 40 and older are encouraged to get their annual digital screening mammograms. Many community organizations, such as the Susan Komen Foundations and American Cancer Society send out news and encouragement to all women for screening and treatment for breast cancer. 
