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VHH offers digital mammography

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Contributed by: Celine Petrossian on 4/17/2008

This year in America, more than 212,920 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Today, Verdugo Hills Hospital (VHH) advanced the fight against this pervasive disease by installing a new, state-of-the-art digital mammography system for its patients.

This system, a GE Healthcare Senographe Essential Digital Mammography system, was selected because of its superior technology.

"By offering this service, we affirm our commitment to provide our patients and medical staff with state-of-the-art technology in a community hospital setting," said VHH President and CEO Len LaBella.

"Providing the best diagnostic equipment possible to our patients, which is a vital step to good preventive health, this new digital technology will provide both high-precision accuracy and increased ease of use for our patients, with even lower radiation exposure than standard low-dose film mammography," said Dr. Christina Wade, director of the Women's Health Imaging at VHH.

There are many advantages to a digital system. The images are clear and it offers a better view of the breast, especially near the skin line, chest wall and in women with diverse breast tissue types.

The digital image is viewed by the technologist within 10 seconds. There is no longer a wait for films to be developed to be sure the images are usable. Digital mammograms take as little as half the time of film.

"This is new and powerful technology for the detection and fight against breast cancer," said Scott Cameron, administrative director of diagnostic services at VHH. "Digital systems such as the new Senographe Essential allow us to offer our patients state-of-the-art mammograms that are faster and easier than ever before. And it gives our referring physicians extremely accurate images to use in diagnosis."

Thanks to the efforts of the VHH Foundation and the community, VHH is the first of hospitals in the area to introduce digital mammography equipment to the community.

"We are on the verge of another first in imaging," Cameron said. "Verdugo Hills had the first MRI. We had the first multi-slice CAT scanner, the first stereo breast biopsy room and we were the first hospital in the area to go to PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System). And now we are the first hospital to go with digital mammography."

The purchase of VHH's digital mammography equipment has been funded by the hospital's foundation board members, friends in the community, the Parsons Foundation, Glendale Community Foundation, Pasadena Community Foundation, Soroptimist Club of Glendale, the Women's Council of VHH Foundation and the employees of VHH.

To schedule a digital mammography at VHH, contact 818-952-3557.

Digital mammography is offered at the Verdugo Hills Hospital Breast Imaging Center located at 1818 Verdugo Blvd. Suite 103, Glendale.

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