HCMH Offers Digital Mammography

This year in America, more than 184,450 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Hancock County Memorial Hospital (HCMH) advanced the fight against this pervasive disease by installing a new cutting edge digital mammography system for its patients.

This system, a GE Healthcare Senographe Digital Mammography system, provides physicians with clear and precise all-digital images, rather than images on X-ray film. What’s more, the system provides the largest field of view currently available, which can be extremely helpful for precision imaging of patients with diverse shapes and sizes.

“This is new and powerful technology for the detection and fight against breast cancer,” says Jami Hagen, HCMH Radiology Director. “Digital systems such as the new GE system allow us to offer our patients state-of-the-art mammograms that are fast and easy. And it gives our physicians accurate images to use in diagnosis. The images are clear and easy to read, and it offers an excellent view of the breast, especially near the skin line, chest wall and in women with diverse breast tissue types.”

Digital mammography offers many significant advantages over conventional film mammography, including:

  • Fewer false diagnoses of potential cancer among young women, which lead to unnecessary biopsies, increased costs, and needless anxiety;
  • Significant reduction in time required for screening and diagnostic procedures;
  • Improved breast cancer detection in women under 50 and women with dense breast tissue.

Breast cancer is one of the most serious threats to women and the leading cause of death in women between the ages of 30 and 55. One of eight women will develop breast cancer, as it is the second most common form of cancer among women in the United States, next to skin cancer.

Full field digital mammography is much better at accurately detecting breast cancer, in its early stages, for women in three categories:

  • All women under age 50
  • Women of any age who have dense breast tissue
  • Pre- or peri-menopausal women of any age.

“This new digital technology will provide both accuracy and increased ease of use for our patients,” says Vance Jackson, CEO/Administrator at HCMH. “Providing outstanding diagnostic equipment for patients is a vital step to good preventive health, and one we take very seriously.”

To schedule a digital mammogram at HCMH, contact your healthcare provider at any of the HCMH clinics in Britt, Garner, Kanawha and Wesley.