Mammography patients at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre have been screened using digital radiography equipment, says Mark Henderson.
Henderson, the executive vice-president, chronic disease prevention and management for the Health Sciences Centre and the regional vice-president, cancer services with the Northwest Regional Cancer Program at Cancer Care Ontario, confirmed Tuesday that neither the hospital nor the mobile breast screening unit uses computed radiography mammography, which researchers show may let some tumours go undetected.
Henderson noted CR technology is used in the city, at the Thunder Bay Medical Centre.
According to the report, digital and film screenings detect cancer in 4.9 patients per 1,000, while the computed technology only detects it in 3.4 patients per 1,000, making the CR devices 21 per cent less effective than the DR devices.
The province plans to spend $25 million to phase out the CR machines and replace them with DR machines, in response to the study, conducted by Cancer Care Ontario.
“First of all you need to find out if you had a computed (mammography) or not. Then what they should do they should check with their family doctor or nurse practitioner and get more professional advice there,” Henderson said.
A re-test is a possibility, he added, but only under the right circumstances.
“It depends on a number of factors. If you’ve just had one done, there would be some reluctance to do another because there’s a little bit of radiation done with every study. If you’re having them done every year or every two years, that does build up over a woman’s lifetime,” Henderson said.
“It’s not a totally innocuous test. It should be given some serious consideration.”
About one-in-five mammography units in Ontario is based on CR technology.
An email request for comment has been directed to the Thunder Bay Medical Centre.
