Digital Mammography Reading Made Easier

Transitioning a practice from screen-film to digital mammography presents many challenges. With the release of the new R2 DigitalNow HD software application, Hologic makes that transition easier. DigitalNow™ HD provides two new ways to combine a new software innovation with Hologic's digitizing platforms, which provide the capability to scan films for soft-copy review and make it possible to archive images for future use.

DigitalNow HD adapts each digitized film image to a selected contrast and tissue intensity that models a digital mammography system. It embeds a series of look-up tables in the image that allows advanced workstations to draw out less evident regions of density in the digitized film images.

DigitalNow HD software is the only FDA-cleared application intended to process digitized screen-film mammograms, and should be used for comparison purposes only.

Workflow for the Future

DigitalNow HD is designed to enhance workflow by promoting consistency in the digital mammography reading environment. Using Hologic digitizing platforms today to archive images for use tomorrow also opens other possibilities. Once the PACS is fully populated with the digitized prior mammograms the film library can be moved to a more remote, less costly location.

Additionally, having DigitalNow HD images available during screening eliminates the practice of using a light box adjacent to the diagnostic mammography workstation; this reduces both the physical strain on the radiologist caused by having to look repeatedly to the side, and the ocular strain caused by enormous brightness differences.

Best of all, images already digitized by Hologic's digitizing software and stored in PACS can be routed to DigitalNow HD and reprocessed. The effort of digitizing all those mammograms is preserved, and the image appearance is enhanced.