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NEWS FEATURE

Making Advances In Breast Cancer Imaging
by Hank Russell
 
January 2004

Breast cancer will strike more than 200,000 people in the United States this year and claim more than 40,000 lives. Those who go in to get examined not only have to deal with the stress of coping with having this disease, but the stress of having to wait for the results after a mammogram. In some cases, it can take days, making it more anguishing for the patient.

Then there is the cost involved. Newer technologies have hit the marketplace but hospitals are fearful of paying the high prices associated with high technology. Patients are worried about the spiraling costs of healthcare and if they can afford to get such treatment.

Many companies are developing imagers for breast cancer that will alleviate the fears that patients will go through. Thanks to clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, these systems will be available.

Clearing The Way
The FDA has given clearance to many imaging systems for use in the detection of breast cancer. The iQ^TM Computer Aided Detection (CAD) system from iCAD (Nashua, NH), which just received FDA approval last month, is designed specifically for women?s health centers and breast clinics that perform less than 200 mammography procedures per day. It will ship in the fourth quarter of 2003 and it has appeared at the RSNA Conference in Chicago.