Vehicle features digital equipment to detect breast cancer

By Julie Randle, St. Louis Suburban Journals, October 31, 2006

It has traveled through the city and country, all over the interstates of Missouri and Illinois and journeyed on the two-lane roads into Missouri''s boot hill. All those miles trekked for women''s health.

The Siteman Center Cancer''s former mammography van, better know as "poppies" for the "Poppies in the Field" painting depicted on its body, officially retired. After 12 years of service and more that a few hundred thousand miles on the engine, it was time.

"The old vehicle was old. It was starting to have problems all old vehicles have," said Susan Kraenzle, RN, manager of the Joanne Knight Breast Health Center at the Siteman Cancer Center.

On Oct. 24, the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine unveiled its replacement at the Center for Advanced Medicine, 4921 Parkview Place.

The new pink van requires a driver with a commercial driver''s license, weighs 31,000 pounds and is 40-feet long. It''s the first vehicle in the area with digital mammography equipment and one of about 20 in the country, officials said.

The high-tech breast cancer-screening machine was designed with women in mind. Its catch phrase is "Every woman. Everywhere." About 100 women from the community were part of the design process.

"We look at it as everybody''s van," Kraenzle said.

Like its counterpart, the new van will travel to churches,

neighborhood clinics, corporations and grocery store parking lots. It will service all types of women and perform about 8,000 mammograms each year, she said.

One big difference between the old and new vehicles is the equipment used to screen for breast cancer. With digital technology, no film is processed and images are sent back over a wireless network to the radiologists.

"What this means is we don''t have film anymore. We don''t have a large processor or chemicals to develop the films," Kraenzle said.

"What''s really exciting is that we are taking better care of women. Research shows that digital technology helps find cancer better in certain groups of women. Those groups are women under 50, women who have dense breasts and women who are pre-menopausal and peri-menopausal. In all groups, digital technology is at least equal (to the way screenings were conducted previously)."

Beginning at the age of 40, women should undergo a yearly mammogram. If a woman notices an abnormality or changes in her breast, a mammogram also should also be conducted, Kraenzle said.

Screenings will be provided to all women regardless of their ability to pay, she said.

"The goal for the vehicle is to reach women who would not otherwise seek breast-screening services because of convenience, location or a multitude of other reasons," Kraenzle said.

"Screening mammography has contributed significantly to the decline in the number of deaths from breast cancer. The mobile program offers convenient screening in a community-based setting, helping many women who would not otherwise have access to mammograms."

This year, the Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine mobile mammography program is celebrating 20 years.

Two Barnes-Jewish Hospital physicians started the program. Dr. Ron Evens, then president of Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology and Dr. Judy Destouet, who in 1986 was professor of radiology and head of mammography at MIR, purchased an Airstream travel trailer, which was converted into the first mobile mammography van west of the Mississippi River.

"Many women tell us they wouldn''t have received a mammogram if our van had not been parked where they work, at the grocery stores where they shop or at a clinic near their homes," said Betty Hayward, mammography outreach coordinator. "It''s exciting to see the program making a difference in these women''s lives, and for women to understand the importance of screenings and being active in their health care."

In its history the mammography program has had three vehicles. The new van, which costs $350,000, was funded through Celebrate Fitness, an annual workout fundraiser that raises money for breast cancer and Share the Care, which sells pink ribbon (breast cancer) merchandise. The van''s digital equipment, which costs $400,000, was funded through the Avon Foundation, an organization committed to improving women''s lives.

For more information about the mobile mammography program or to schedule a screening, call 1-800-600-3606.