Siteman’s New Mammography Van Ready To Hit the Road
October 19, 2006, ST. LOUIS – After 20 years and over 121,000 miles on the odometer – and that''s after it''s rolled over to zero - it''s time for a new set of wheels.
During breast cancer awareness month, the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine will introduce a new mobile mammography van to St. Louis during an unveiling October 24 at Siteman. The new van will be the first in the St. Louis area with digital mammography equipment and one of only ten in the country.
The current van is on the road at least five days a week and performs almost 8,000 mammograms each year with images read back at Siteman by radiologists affiliated with Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.
"Screening mammography has contributed significantly to the decline in the number of deaths from breast cancer," says Susan Kraenzle, RN, manager of the Joanne Knight Breast Health Center at Siteman. "The mobile program offers convenient screening in a community-based setting, helping many women who would not otherwise have access to mammograms."
Research at Siteman led to a new van and new digital equipment. Physicians from 33 sites in the U.S. and Canada participated in DMIST (Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial). Investigators at Washington University School of Medicine''s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology interpreted both film and digital screening mammograms of each of the more than 3,300 volunteers enrolled at the Breast Center, the largest cohort in the study.
Results of DMIST released in 2005 showed that conventional film mammography and digital mammography were equally effective. However, digital mammography performed better for the following groups: women under 50, women who are premenopausal and perimenopausal and women with dense breasts. The total of these groups represents at least 50% of the general population of women.
"After the exciting results of the DMIST study, we launched a very aggressive initiative to provide this very important technology to the women we take care of," says Kraenzle.
The current van is easy to spot as it''s graced with the painting "Poppies in the Field."
The new van will sport a different look.
Featuring the tagline "Every woman. Everywhere." it features original art from St. Louis artist and cancer survivor Laura Bailey. The van, funded by Celebrate Fitness and Share the Care with digital mammography technology funded by the Avon Foundation, will continue visiting churches, corporations, clinics, Schnucks stores and other locations.
Twenty years ago, two Barnes-Jewish Hospital physicians were taken with the idea of a mobile mammography unit after attending a conference in Chicago. The brainchild of Ron Evens, MD, then president of Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology and Judy Destouet, MD, who in 1986 was professor of radiology and head of mammography at MIR, they purchased a recreational vehicle and transformed it into the first mobile mammography van west of the Mississippi River.
Studies by the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine show that many women in certain areas of St. Louis have increased rates of advanced breast cancer. As a result of this research, the mammography van now includes these areas on its route, going as far as providing free mammograms to qualifying women in need through funding from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Judy Ride Foundation and Show-Me Healthy Women Program.
"Many women tell us they wouldn''t have received a mammogram if our van had not been parked where they work, at the grocery stores where they shop or at a clinic near their homes," says Betty Hayward, mammography outreach coordinator since 1989. "It''s exciting to see the program making a difference in these women''s lives, and for women to understand the importance of screenings and being active in their health care."
For more information about the mobile mammography program or to schedule a screening, call 800-600-3606.
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