"Mammography still needs to use printers to get ACR accreditation and that's why so many companies are coming out with them now," says Neil Thompson, President of JD Imaging Corp. "Sony just came out with one, Fuji has one, Kodak. If you go digital with your mammography you have to get a laser printer also."


Denholtz explains why the mammography need will keep laser cameras from dying out any time soon.

"We've sold a lot of laser cameras for digital mammography and that's a specific type of camera that has high enough resolution. You can't just take your old camera that you are getting rid of and refurbish it for mammography. It has to be a specific model camera. There is a need for these," Denholtz says. "It used to be that all mammography film was done with the wet process; in other words, the machines were analog that produced film that needed to be developed. But because analog mammography has gone by the wayside, we're looking at a digital world, but ACR still says that you need to print films so all these places with digital mammos going in, still need hard copy capability."

Although the uses are declining, and companies are branching out to other areas, laser cameras and imaging are still needed for other reasons as well.

"From the data that I am encountering, business in imaging centers is kind of slow with reimbursements not delivering the money they used to so they may not get enough back right now to warrant going digital," Moretti says. "This means that they are still going to continue to do film."




Even though some facilities are all digital, they still use laser cameras because some people want hard copy film. And even though technology exists for PACS to store images, laser imagers can be used as a safety back-up, especially if the systems ever go down.

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