Northeast Georgia Diagnostic Clinic
was the first medical facility in
the area to offer digital mammography.
Kim Johnson, the clinic's
radiology supervisor, said the technology has many of the same
advantages that make digital photography so popular with consumers. "It
takes half the time of a regular mammogram because you don't have to
develop film," she said. "There are also very few re-tests, because the
patient doesn't have to be called back for close-up pictures if the
doctor notices something unusual. "We can just magnify the image on the
screen."
Technicians
also can adjust the image so that all layers of tissue can be seen. This
is important for women with dense breast tissue, whose tumors might be
missed on a traditional mammogram. And the machine includes
computer-aided detection, or what Johnson calls "a kind of spell-check.
It draws the radiologist's attention to details he might have missed."
She predicts that within five years, most imaging centers will convert
to digital mammography, which was approved by the Food and Drug
Administration a couple of years ago. "About 90 percent of insurance
companies are covering it," Johnson said. "It costs them about 10
percent more than a regular mammogram, but the extra is not passed on to
the patient."
The Diagnostic
Clinic has converted completely from analog to digital mammography.
