Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital is advancing the fight against breast cancer with innovative technology designed to overcome barriers to detection and compliance.
“We’ve brought next generation breast cancer screening to the Eastern Shore,” Riverside radiologist Benjamin Pettus, M.D., PhD, said of Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital’s new MAMMOMAT Revelation, a Siemens Healthineers 3D mammography (breast tomosynthesis) machine.
“It’s simply not the same mammogram,” Pettus said. “I call it ‘next generation’ because it’s almost like a whole new way of doing it. It’s still called a mammogram. It’s still called 3D. But it’s ‘next generation’ because I’m confident I am finding more smaller and earlier cancers with it – even subtle changes in dense breast tissue.”
Traditionally, high breast density can slightly increase the risk of developing cancer and can make cancer detection more challenging. MAMMOMAT Revelation is the first mammography platform to provide automated breast density measurements at the point of examination.
MAMMOMAT Revelation’s unique wide 50-degree angle, the industry’s highest depth resolution, captures more detail for extremely high-quality 3D images that increase diagnostic confidence and enables earlier detection of even subtle lesions.
Early detection and screening is critically important, Pettus said, to finding breast cancer before it has an opportunity to spread to other areas of the body. “If you can find it before it goes anywhere, you change the situation from treatable to curable - guaranteed to save a life,” Pettus said. “This is the whole reason every woman over 40 should be screened yearly, and now with this technology we can offer this with improved patient safety and comfort.”
With MAMMOMAT Revelation’s Personalized Soft Compression, patients also get exactly the right amount of compression required to perform the screening.
“Compression is key to getting an accurate mammogram,” Pettus said. “However, the associated discomfort and pain are some of the reasons why women avoid mammography exams. We wanted to remove any barrier that could stop a woman from getting the screening she needs.”
The compression force with MAMMOMAT Revelation is automatically adjusted for the greatest individual comfort without losing any accuracy. Typically this about a 40% reduction in the compression required without losing quality, Pettus said.
“It’s panning out to be true in my practice where there are a lot of things that I wouldn’t have seen as early without this technology,” Pettus said. “For example, a 7 mm spot used to be a very impressive observation. We’ve had several patients recently where we’ve found spots as small as 3 mm. The smaller and earlier we can find things, the less treatment ladies need for us to save a life.”
To schedule a 3D mammogram, call 800-675-6368 or visit riversideonline.com/schedule. Because of its many benefits, a growing number of insurance carriers fully cover 3D mammography services. Patients should still check with their insurance company to learn more about what services are covered.
Published: September 29, 2020