Digital Mammography: Your Peace of Mind

Digital mammography is a powerful new weapon in the fight against breast cancer and SHC offers the most advanced version of digital mammography in southwestern Wisconsin. 

The Advantages of Digital Mammography  

Mammograms, particularly the standard film mammogram, are not perfect. Dense breast tissue and malignant cells both appear white on a film mammogram, so many early-stage breast cancers can be concealed by adjacent dense breast tissue. That produces a "false negative" result, meaning the cancer can go undetected.

Digital mammography offers a marked improvement over traditional film mammography in several ways.

• Studies show it’s a significantly better diagnostic tool for detecting breast cancer, especially for women younger than 50, women with dense breasts, and premenopausal women.
• Digital images help doctors make accurate diagnoses. Doctors view the images electronically on a computer monitor, magnifying them and adjusting brightness and contrast on a high resolution display. This extra control makes it easier to see subtle differences in breast tissue and diagnose cancer more accurately.
• The need for additional unscheduled mammograms is greatly reduced because doctors have the advanced digital tools necessary to study digital mammograms in such detail.
• Patients receive quicker results than with traditional mammography.Since images are captured to digital files the instant they are created, doctors can turn around results in hours or days, instead of weeks. This can be especially comforting to women who may be awaiting mammogram results on a lump detected as part of a clinical or self-exam.
• Files are not in danger of being lost or having poor image quality.Digital mammograms are stored as electronic files that can be transmitted to other healthcare providers while still retaining a copy at SHC. Unlike traditional mammograms, there’s never a chance mammograms can get lost in transit.

Visit our Women's Health page for more information about breast cancer screening guidelines.

Talk to your doctor about scheduling a digital mammogram at SHC.