
Breast screening in the UK
Expert warns that breast screening across the country needs to undergo a dramatic transformation over the next 15 years, Mark Nicholls reports.

Expert warns that breast screening across the country needs to undergo a dramatic transformation over the next 15 years, Mark Nicholls reports.

‘As we become more successful in the early detection and treatment of breast cancer, we tend to trivialise it. Yet one in 9 women still get breast cancer. Half of them become depressed, their partners don’t know how to react and their families are in disarray. We need to stop trivialising breast cancer. It kills women.’ So says Dr Fabienne Liebens, Head of the Saint-Pierre Hospital’s…

The daily management of around 700 examinations within the national mammography screening programme keeps Dr Ilse Vejborg and her team at Rigshospitalet pretty busy. ‘We have the largest screening unit in Denmark with 200,000 women aged 50-69 years in the target group invited for an examination every second year,’ she explains.

Films with vivid 3-D images draw millions to cinemas – regardless of the plot. This technology, which is based on a stereoscopic effect, is not only entertaining but also medically relevant, as demonstrated by the Amulet three-dimensional digital mammography system produced by Fujifilm.

Sectra has completed a mammography-modality deal with Royal Philips Electronics. Philips will pay EUR 57.5 million in a cash-on-cash and debt-free basis and take over the acquired modality operation today, September 1, 2011.

Since 1991 the International Breast Ultrasound School (IBUS) has indefatigably promoted progress and quality assurance in breast ultrasound -- a good reason for IBUS to celebrate its 20th anniversary during WFUMB.

Every medical congress is an opportunity for the manufacturers to showcase their products. This year’s congress of the German Röntgen Society was no exception -- and one innovation particularly caught the attention of our European Hospital team: positron emission mammography, PEM for short.

Hologic announced today that its Selenia Dimensions digital mammography system in two dimensional (2D) mode has been awarded “EUREF Type Test” certification by the European Reference Organization (EUREF) Council for Quality Assured Breast Screening and Diagnostic Services.

From first lady of breast MRI to the Germany’s most influential woman in radiology – that’s one way to describe Professor Christiane Kuhl’s switch from being Vice-Chairman of the Department of Radiology and Vice President of the University of Bonn to become Chairman of the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the University Hospital Aachen (UKA).
Mammography is the most widely used modality for early detection of breast cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. But its limitations, such as the high number of false positives it creates, have led researchers to focus on different strategies to characterize breast carcinomas more accurately, such as tomography, MRI and molecular imaging. In a new horizons session today at…
ContextVision, the software imaging partner for the most recognized medical imaging manufacturers worldwide, today introduced two innovative solutions at the 2011 European Congress of Radiology (ECR). A mammography solution addresses current limitations of x-ray image diagnosis for the detection of breast cancer, while the interventional radiology solution helps achieve superior, real-time images…

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Europe: each year 350,000 new cases are diagnosed and each year about 130,000 women die of the disease. At the same time breast cancer is one of the few cancer types with encouraging healing prospects – if detected early.

It’s digital mammography taken to the next level – or, so to speak, the next dimension as digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) that provides high resolution 3-D imaging. For about two years this exciting technology has promised to become the magic bullet in the early detection of breast cancer, particularly in the dense breast.

SECure TRAnsmission, the main aim of a spin-off from the Linköping Institute of Technology, was established in 1978. From this beginning, the Swedish firm Sectra has evolved into one of the world’s leading players in PACS and mammography solutions. Although secure communication systems remains a core business, the medical section has constantly grown since 1988, when Dr Torbjörn Kronander…

Breast cancer screening programmes are helping to reduce the mortality rates of women by finding cancer in its early stages when it is easier to treat. Sweden was one of the first countries in the world to introduce a screening program after succesful clinical trials in the 1980s. However x-ray radiation is also a risk factor for inducing breast cancer, meaning that a low radiation dose is…
Hologic announced the signing of an exclusive partnership agreement with SuperSonic Imagine, S.A., an innovative producer of diagnostic ultrasound technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Hologic will sell, install and service SuperSonic Imagine's Aixplorer ultrasound technology platform to the breast care community in the United States.
Sectra has been recognized by Frost & Sullivan for its unique photon counting mammography system, Sectra MicroDose, with the Product Quality Leadership, Women's Health Imaging Europe 2010 award.

With the greyscale display MS31i2, Totoku has introduced the first 3 Megapixel with ISD Technology. The high resolution display is suitable especially for X-ray diagnosis and thorax images, the company reports, adding: ‘With its high brightness of up to 1500 cd/m² it offers a very long backlight lifetime.’

High resolution radionuclide imaging is a technique increasingly used to detect breast cancers and has already been shown to offer improved diagnosis in many clinical situations. The technique, which will be discussed at RSNA 2010 (28 November to 3 December, Chicago) , is also allowing clinicians to detect previously unknown areas of breast cancer in women with newly-diagnosed disease.

Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) is a promising new technology that acquires 3-D breast images. The individual images are presented as thin, high-resolution slices, which can be displayed individually or in a dynamic cine mode. Preliminary studies in a clinical setting have demonstrated that this new technology has the potential to improve not only the breast cancer detection but also to reduce…

It’s been around for decades, re-emerged in the ’90s and, today, experts see a bright future for tomosynthesis technology. Thus its progress and future developments, plus specialist uses (e.g. breast) will be a particular feature at the Radiological Society of North America scientific assembly and annual meeting in Chicago this year.
Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) is a promising new technology that acquires 3-dimensional images of the breast. The individual images are presented as thin high-resolution slices that can be displayed individually or in a dynamic cine mode. Preliminary studies in a clinical setting have demonstrated that this new technology has the potential to improve not only the detection of breast cancers…

Standard mammography is the most relevant diagnostic tool to address breast cancer: It shows excellent image quality, a smooth workflow, high connectivity and a very good clinical outcome in terms of sensitivity and specificity. However, there are certain shortcomings to it, especially in dense breast tissue.

A study looking at breast cancer patients in England compared to those in Norway and Sweden has highlighted the importance of early detection. The three-country comparison reveals that every year almost 1,000 more lives could be saved in England alone.

White nights in St Petersburg draw in not only romantics, but June in this beautiful city also sees thousands of delegates arrive to attend the many scientific conferences and congresses. Among oncologists, the ‘white nights’ period means another annual scientific conference organised by the NN Petrov Research Institute of Oncology. For its continuing focus on breast cancer, the halls are…