New technology helps BHS fight breast cancer
SUMMIT TWP — State-of-the-art technology continues to maintain Butler Health System's status among the top diagnostic breast cancer facilities in the region.
Dr. Ruthane Reginella said while the system's Women's Imaging Center at the BHS Crossroads Campus has had a stereotactic biopsy table since 2001, a new model with improved technology in the devices used with the table will be delivered in November.
She said the technology will allow patients to spend less time in testing while providing better pinpoint accuracy.
Reginella explains that a patient whose mammogram or other noninvasive testing has necessitated a needle biopsy lies on the stereotactic table on her belly.
The breast is positioned in an opening on the table and compressed in a paddle much like that of a mammography machine.
“The computer allows us to localize and exactly locate the lesion that is to be biopsied,” Reginella said.
A needle is then inserted and removes tiny samples of tissue from the area in question.
“There is a neat attachment that when the specimens, as soon as we acquire them through the device, is immediately X-rayed right there,” Reginella said.
The patient is then released from the table and goes about her day.
“It's done under local anesthesia, so the patient is awake,” Reginella said. “It's fast and efficient.”
The tissue is then sent to the laboratory for testing.
“If it's benign, then we have answered our question, but if we do find a cancer or something atypical, then surgery is indicated,” Reginella said.
She said the new table costs $350,000 to $400,000, and almost $137,000 of that was raised in March at the Butler Health System Foundation's annual Crystal Ball fundraiser.
“This (machine) is the direct result of the Crystal Ball,” Reginella said. “I can't thank the foundation and the community enough.”
She said everyone at the imagining center is anxious to receive the new stereotactic table.
“This is very exciting in our center,” Reginella said. “It's just one piece of our program here, where we always strive to have state-of-the-art equipment.”
The longtime physician said with every new piece of technologically enhanced equipment, she is reminded of breast cancer detection at the start of her career.
“When I started, it was at the very end of mammography with a high radiation dose and the images were on paper,” Reginella said. “I was a resident, and film screen mammography was just beginning.”
After several years of images appearing on a sheet of film, the industry switched to digital images on a computer screen. The enhancement there was that the pictures were two dimensional.Today, three-dimensional images are taken on two tomosynthesis imaging machines at the imaging center.“It's really quite exciting to have been a part of that evolution of mammography,” Reginella said.The imagining center acquired its first 3D breast imaging machine in 2015 when the Butler Health System opened the Crossroads Campus.The latest was purchased last year.Reginella said the health system maintains 2D machines at the Cypher Building beside Butler Memorial Hospital, and at BHS Outpatient Services in Slippery Rock.She said the machines include the latest technology for 2D applications, which are equally as able as a 3D mammography machine to catch small tumors in women who have fatty or low-density breast tissue.“There are so many new technologies making (detection) so much easier,” Reginella said. “What's next?”
