The InveniaTM ABUS 2.0 (Automated Breast Ultrasound System) at Lima Memorial’s Women’s Health Center.
LIMA —A new machine made its debut at Lima Memorial Medical Park’s Women’s Health Center on Wednesday, and it could hold the key to saving more lives from breast cancer.
The InveniaTM ABUS 2.0 (Automated Breast Ultrasound System) was freshly unwrapped and officials including Dr. Darlene Weyer, the Medical Director of Women’s Health at Lima Memorial, were excited to show it off and inform the public about its benefits.
“This exam offers no radiation,” she said. “It takes a 3D picture of the entire breast.”
The machine, which can detect up to 35.7% of additional cancers, takes less than ten minutes to obtain an image, after an initial mammogram has failed to detect them due to dense breast tissue, and then shows any suspicious masses as black against white, dense tissue.
“I would then look at the image once it’s obtained and correlate it and compare it to the mammogram so that when I see those dense areas on the mammogram I can look at the ultrasound and zoom into those areas and see if any little masses were hidden or obscured by that dense breast tissue,” said Weyer. “40% of women who have a screening mammogram will meet the criteria to have this exam. This is a screening exam. It does not replace mammography. It is used in conjunction with mammography as an adjunctive tool to better define the breast tissue to see where those tiny cancers may be hidden.”
Weyer said that the cancers that can be found with the machine are ones that are easily treatable.
“To be able to offer this modality and this technology to patients in our community is amazing because this is something that the larger hospitals in big cities do and in fact, so major cities don’t even offer it. So, we are fortunate and so blessed that our administration was on board and saw the value in this new imaging modality.”
She added that in the past, radiologists did their best to detect all cancers, but that it has always been known that there are cancers that cannot be seen.
“Now we have the ability to zoom through those areas,” she said. “Now we know that we can scan the entire breast and look at all of the tissue to see if there are any masses that look worrisome for cancer.”
Patients can call the Women’s Health Center at 419-998-4497 to schedule a mammogram without a doctor’s order and if they meet the criteria for the new modality, they will be notified by letter in the mail.
Weyer recommends women receive yearly mammograms.
Reach Jacob Espinosa 567-242-0399.
