by
Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | November 29, 2017
From the November 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Automated breast ultrasound: Dense tissue game-changer?
Since dense breast tissue can hide cancer on mammography, secondary imaging modalities (like tomosynthesis and molecular breast imaging, for example) have been on the rise in recent years.
While there is no one secondary imaging answer, NorthShore University Health System in Chicago announced in March that it has doubled its cancer detection rate performing 40 automated breast ultrasound (ABUS) exams per day.
“Over the past several years, one of the biggest challenges is detecting breast cancer in women who have dense or extremely dense breast tissue,” Dr. Georgia Giakoumis Spear, chief of the department of breast imaging at NorthShore, told HCB News. “We know that there are limitations with mammography alone and that we are missing up to one-third of breast cancer in this population of patients.”
The health system runs four hospitals and five satellite imaging centers with a staff of 13 dedicated breast imagers. In November 2015, they deployed two of GE Healthcare’s Invenia ABUS systems and after eight months they purchased another two systems.
NorthShore decided ABUS was a better option than handheld ultrasound because it offers more reproducibility and consistency, which means there is less room for error when conducting the exams.
A technologist can complete the scan in 15 to 20 minutes and the images are then post-processed on a workstation, where the radiologist can view them in 3-D planes.
Over the next three years, Spear and her colleagues will conduct a clinical trial to establish the efficacy of ABUS as a breast cancer screening solution.
“We hope it will help establish much needed practice guidelines on how to implement such a program and utilize this tool,” she said.
