Washington Radiology Associates, PC

The Potential of Digital

For Washington Radiology, one of the most important aspects of being asked to participate in DMIST, was discovering first hand the true potential for digital mammography.

“DMIST proved that digital mammography offered specific clinical advantages over film mammography,” says Dr. Julianne S. Greenberg, Washington Radiology’s Director of Mammography and the DMIST site’s principal investigator for the study. “It (DMIST) showed that digital mammography is better for women with dense breasts, women who are pre or per-menopausal, and women who are under age 50.” According to Greenberg, more than half of the mammography patients at Washington Radiology fall into one of these categories.

Going With Hologic

During the search for the right digital system, the practice went on numerous site visits to see different manufacturers’ machines. “We pulled everyone together,” says Waring, “and brought them all along. The doctors, the IT people; the technologists came so they could actually work the equipment and see what it was like.”

After all the input and investigating, the decision was made to go with the Selenia Full Field Digital Mammography system, from Hologic, Inc.

“Selenia is the leading edge of breast imaging technology,” Greenberg says, “it’s the total package. The Selenia detector plate is the most advanced on the market, and the images are of the highest quality. Selenia was the logical choice for our practice. The other vendors,” she adds, “were clearly not up to Hologic.”

Total Digital Conversion

Once the decision was made to make the change to digital mammography, the practice recognized that the changeover needed to be absolute, involving every location in the practice. They decided to completely replace all of their analog systems in each of their five mammography sites.

“We made the conversion to digital practice wide because all of our patients would then benefit from the clinical advantages,” says Greenberg, “How could we justify a partial transition in only a few of our sites, and offer digital mammography to some of our patients, and not to others?””

In April of 2006, Washington Radiology received the first of ten Selenia systems, installed serially, one site after another, until the transition was complete on July 6, 2006. “As each site was introduced to digital, that site went totally digital,” Waring says. “We replaced 22 analog units with those first ten Selenias. We have fifteen digital units now.”