Breast Imaging

Women's health news related to breast imaging, including mammography, breast MRI, automated breast ultrasound (ABUS), breast ultrasound, breast biopsy, and positron emission mammography (PEM). This channel also includes news on breast density and the issues it causes in detecting cancers.  Mammography can be broken into two types of systems. 2-D full field digital mammography (FFDM) have almost completely replaced older X-ray film based systems. The newest generation systems use 3-D tomosynthesis mammography technology, where a series of digital images are shot in an arch around the breasts and a computer reconstructs the images into slices that can be scrolled through to see layers of tissue. This allows easier radiology reading of images, especially in women with dense breasts, because it can cancers where there are several layers of thick breast tissue that can mask cancers on 2-D mammography. Tomo is rapidly replacing FFDM.