ST. LUKE’S UNIV. HEALTH NETWORK

For many women, making the time to have an important health screening like a mammogram can take a backseat to the demands of everyday life. This was the case for Susan Dale, 54, a busy restaurant owner, who just had her first screening mammogram.

Her first experience was unique and, in a sense, enjoyable. Susan chose to be screened with GE Healthcare’s new SenoClaire® low dose 3-D mammography technology in the SensorySuite® recently installed at St. Luke’s Upper Perkiomen Outpatient Center.

Dale and her husband John have been proprietors of the historic Spinnerstown Hotel Restaurant and Tap Room, located just outside of Quakertown, for more than 20 years. She is also on the board of St. Luke’s Quakertown Campus, serving as chairman of the board.

The SensorySuite is designed to provide a more relaxing mammography experience for women allowing them to choose the environmental ambiance. In the suite, sights, sounds and smells of the seaside, garden or waterfall encourage a sense of well-being and calm, which help to reduce some of the awkwardness a patient may feel during a mammogram.

Dale chose a beautiful garden as the setting for her first mammogram. “It was kind of fun,” she admits.

The 3-D technology uses a low-dose, short X-ray sweep around the compressed breast. This imaging technique is designed to separate the tissues and to reduce the overlapping of structures, which represents a limiting factor in standard mammography.

St. Luke’s is able to offer these newest advances in breast screening to women in Upper Bucks County thanks to a nearly three-decade relationship with GE Healthcare, according to Joseph Russo, MD, section chief of women’s imaging at St. Luke’s University Health Network. The same technologies were installed earlier this year at St. Luke’s West End Medical Center in Allentown. Only a handful of locations nationwide provide them together. The nearest provider to offer the GE 3-D technology with the Sensory Suite is Cooper Medical System in Camden, NJ.

Dale is glad she had her first mammogram, but is even happier with the results. “It’s good to know everything is just fine,” she said. “I will see them again next year.”

St. Luke’s University Health Network reports breast cancer detection rates higher than national average with fewer call-backs.

Ultimately, technology is a tool to help physicians diagnose disease in its early stages for the optimal health of patients, according to Dr. Joseph Russo, section chief of Women’s Imaging, who reports St. Luke’s breast cancer detection rate of five patients per 1,000 screened is higher than the national average of 3.95 patients per 1,000. This means physicians at St. Luke’s detect an average of 200 more cancers a year of its 40,000 screening mammograms than counterparts across the country.

Effectively using breast screening tools can lead to a significant increase in cancer detection rates while reducing the need for a return visit or an unnecessary breast biopsy.

In addition to advanced technologies and easy access to Women’s Imaging Centers throughout the region, St. Luke’s takes breast screening one step further by offering female patients an individualized breast screening program based on her family history, age and health.