For Immediate Release
Mercy One of Three Sites in the World with New Breast Technology
Oklahoma City — Mercy Women’s Center and Breast MRI
of Oklahoma today announce their selection as a beta test site for EDGE™
breast MRI, a proposed upgrade for existing RODEO™ breast-dedicated MRI.
Mercy is one of only three sites in the world assisting in this new
technology.
EDGE™ technology was recently installed at Mercy by
Aurora Imaging Technology, Inc. of North Andover, Massachusetts.
Patients being scanned at Mercy will now be afforded sharper images,
with slices less than 1mm (0.8mm), the thinnest in the industry, even
when all competing technologies are considered.
“This will allow us to more accurately diagnose and
stage breast cancer,” said Rebecca Stough, M.D., radiologic director of
Mercy Women’s Center and clinical director of Breast MRI of Oklahoma.
“The quality of the three dimensional images allows us to identify even
the earliest breast cancer with greater sensitivity. The incredibly
sharp pictures also allow for better evaluation of the margins of
abnormalities, thus reducing the number of false positives by
distinguishing benign from malignant.”
Breast MRI was introduced nationwide in the early
2000s, and Mercy Women’s Center was the first in the state of Oklahoma
to adopt an active program, beginning one year prior to the availability
of breast-dedicated units that are now proliferating worldwide. Dr.
Stough has supervised or interpreted more than 10,000 breast MRIs,
comparable to any of the pioneering sites in the nation.
While many patients and physicians assume the
details of the technology are not critical, breast MRI is proving to be
controversial, with a wide range of results being reported. “There is
general agreement on using breast MRI for high-risk screening, but other
indications are not so clear-cut, especially in pre-operative staging,”
said Dr. Hollingsworth, director of Mercy’s oncology services. “We have
found that much of the speculative criticism about pre-op breast MRI
today appears to be without merit. Women in our studies who underwent
breast MRIs had a better chance of avoiding mastectomies. They also knew
pre-operatively, thanks to the MRI, whether or not they had cancer
elsewhere in either breast.”
Mercy has been active in monitoring and publishing
outcomes. In September’s American Journal of Surgery, Dr. Hollingsworth,
along with Mercy’s Dr. Stough, Carol O’Dell, M.D., and Charles Brekke,
M.D., shared results from a study they completed concerning
pre-operative breast MRIs. This study, co-sponsored by Breast MRI of
Oklahoma, included 603 patients and is the largest series of
pre-operative patients ever reported from a single institution.
“Our published results from Mercy are standing out
as a model for the nation, and we believe this is a result of far more
than the technology alone,” said Dr. Hollingsworth. “It comes from a
highly integrated program wherein radiologists, surgeons, and
pathologists view MRI findings in a roundtable setting. In other words,
for those patients at Mercy Women’s Center who have been diagnosed with
breast cancer, they have the benefit of a team of physicians reviewing
their case, along with the sharpest of images. ”
Press release dated: November 23, 2009
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