Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Breast Cancer Imaging: tomography pros and cons and . . .

medpage today featured an article on a JAMA article of a retrospective study of mammograms with and without tomography.  

The interesting statistic was for me was the difference in detecting invasive cancers.  I did not have tomography, and don't think I know anyone who has.  I did have a callback years ago supposedly due to "folds in older breast tissue,"  and the article indicated that tomography's 3D capability makes those folds unimportant.  (Mammography and the needle biopsy confirmed my DCIS.)

Harold Burstein, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and "a spokesperson for ASCO"* was very guarded in his comments, and mentioned costs. One center in Houston mentions tomography on their site, that made me think it must be expensive.

But I was startled by the disclosures from the study authors: "Friedewald and several co-authors disclosed relevant relationships with Hologic, a manufacturer of the 3-D tomosynthesis equipment."  

*American Society of Clinical Oncology

I wish you health.





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