It also appears to provide better views of tumors near the skin, areas that tend to be harder to spot on conventional film-screen mammography. Dense breast tissue shows up shadowy on traditional film-screen mammograms and is harder to analyze. The mammogram immediately zeroed in on a suspicious area so tiny it easily could have escaped detection, said Enochs, a registered nurse. Dr. A. Christine Watt, chief of breast imaging at the St. John center, called a surgeon the same day and scheduled Enochs for a biopsy. The new technology and other changes signal an important new era in mammography and breast biopsy.
New tools work like computer spell-checking programs to point out abnormalities on mammograms.
Advances in breast biopsy techniques and machines offer women minimally invasive ways of having samples of breast tissue collected, leaving only a single, tiny scar that fades with time. A new method called sentinel lymph node biopsy is being studied. Watt predicts that most Michigan mammography centers will add digital technology within the next 5 years. The University of Michigan and St. John centers, along with William Beaumont's Royal Oak and Troy, Mich., hospitals, also use the ImageChecker computer system that allows doctors to magnify, darken and lighten areas of a mammogram. For now, a major obstacle to getting these high-tech tools installed in other centers is proof that digital mammography and other technologies find cancer earlier and save more lives.