From the July 2018 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine

For average or intermediate risk women with dense breasts, whole breast screening (hand-held examination) or automated (ABUS) ultrasound, have been repeatedly shown to detect an additional two to seven cancers per thousand screened patients. Having a supplemental screening exam helps level the playing field and give these patients a similar chance of having their cancer found to women without dense breasts.

We introduced automated breast ultrasound in 2014 to help increase our cancer detection rate in dense-breasted patients. With this, we have been able to detect an additional 2.6 cancers per 1,000 screened patients.


At Imaging for Women, we read more than 17,000 mammograms a year. We have a personalized approach to care and are committed to giving each patient the screening best suited for her, and to provide fast results.

In fact, our patients receive their mammogram results before leaving the clinic. We sit down with patients who have dense breast tissue to discuss how this can affect breast cancer risk and the challenges of cancer detection. They’re offered a same day ABUS exam in addition to their mammogram. We perform an average of 15 ABUS exams per day, with 21% of dense-breasted patients electing to be screened.

We also often use ABUS diagnostically to evaluate breast pain in women with dense breast tissue. It’s a short 15-20-minute exam, which improves our efficiency, as a bilateral complete hand-held breast ultrasound can take more than half an hour. ABUS exams are reproducible and allow comparison year over year, which is beneficial as we follow patient exams over time.

We have found that offering automated breast ultrasound exams to our dense-breasted patients has resulted in an increase in cancer detection without significant disruption to our workflow. We continue to counsel our patients and referring physicians on the options available to find cancer at its smallest, earliest stage. At the end of the day, our goal is to find cancers as early as possible to help ensure a positive outcome for our patients.

About the author: Dr. Allison Howard Zupon is a diagnostic radiologist specialist at Imaging for Women.


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