State-of-the-art Digital Mammography comes to Barton

Barton HealthCare System announces the installation of a new digital mammography system that could help shorten exams for women and provide physicians with vital diagnostic information.
The MAMMOMAT^® Novation^R from Siemens Medical Solutions captures breast images with a special X-ray detector that converts images into a digital picture that can be displayed immediately on the system's computer monitor.
Unlike film, digital mammograms allow physicians to manipulate image characteristics such as magnification, orientation, brightness and contrast, which improve the ability to view specific areas of the breast. With the digital MAMMOMAT Novation^DR system, results are produced more quickly, helping to decrease both anxiety and discomfort for women, while also reducing radiation exposure.
More than 40,000 women die each year in America from breast cancer, which is the most common form of cancer in women. Mammography can help detect breast tumors at their earliest, most treatable stages. A 2005 study sponsored by the National Cancer Institute showed that digital mammography detects up to 28 percent more cancers than traditional mammography for women under the age of 50 or with dense breasts.
Just as digital cameras provide consumers many advantages over film cameras, digital mammography provides physicians the advantage of being able to manipulate and share breast images, helping to facilitate diagnoses.
Digital mammograms eliminate the need for film storage and images can be easily retrieved electronically. Barton also features the warmer, softer MammoPads which ease or eliminate the discomfort some women experience during mammograms.
Featuring an innovative flat panel X-ray detector built on amorphous Selenium (aSe) technology, these new machines enable physicians to capture images with high spatial resolution and clinical detail, resulting in exceptional diagnostic accuracy. At 24 by 29 centimeters, the size of the MAMMOMAT Novation^DR X-ray detector allows imaging of a wider range of patient breast sizes, and its unique flex compression paddle provides easier and more comfortable patient positioning.
In January, Barton installed a digital mammography machine at their Stateline Medical Clinic and the digital mammography will be in full swing at Barton Memorial Hospital's Medical Imaging Department.
For the Stateline Medical Center's mammography department, call (775) 589-8952. For the hospital's mammography department, call (530) 543-5851.