EAST STROUDSBURG -- Officials at Pocono Medical Center say in the two years they've been offering 3D mammograms, they've seen an increase in the breast cancer detection rate.
"10 years ago, we had old film screen mammography, so it was actually films that needed to be developed, which left out a lot of detail," says Barbarann Carroll, the Chief Mammography Technician at Bartonsville Healthcare Center, part of Pocono Medical Center in Monroe County.
She calls their 3D mammography machines the biggest breakthrough in women's health in the last 30 years.
"It's proven to detect 41% more invasive cancer and it also reduces call back rates, the need for additional testing by 40%," she notes.
That old film screen went to digital or 2D, and now the technology has advanced to offer 3D mammograms. Just in time, too, as medical center officials point out that a woman's chance of developing breast cancer in her life is one in eight.
"I like to describe it (2D) as a closed book, you see the breast top to bottom. With 3D, it's like looking through a book page by page, or layer by later," Carroll says.
It allows her to scroll through many images, instead of just a few.
Jennifer Henry, a breast health nurse practitioner, thinks about it like a television set, on which the pictures have gotten much sharper and clearer over the years. She says the same thing applies here.
"We find little lumps that a woman would not feel for two, three years yet," Henry says.
But the technology is only part of the equation. Henry says the key to the success of 3D mammography is keeping up on screenings, something that Patti Coykendall from East Stroudsburg is sure to do. She just had her first 3D mammogram.
"There wasn't any more discomfort. Everything was pretty much the same. It's just at the end of the day, it's better results, better images to look at," Coykendall tells us.
At Pocono Medical Center, some mammograms are offered for free for women who need them. Officials want to make the screening available to everyone. There are some age and income guidelines to meet. To see if you qualify, call Pocono Medical Center at 570-422-1735 for more information.
