Women's Services

Doctors and scientists agree that early detection is the best defence against breast cancer. If we find breast cancer early, before it has spread to lymph nodes, the five-year survival rate is almost 100 per cent.1 Until now, the best way to do that has been with digital mammography.

Mammography

While digital mammography is still one of the most advanced technologies available today, it is only a 2-dimensional picture of the breast. The breast is a 3-dimensional object composed of different structures, such as blood vessels, milk ducts, fat, and ligaments. All of these structures, which are located at different heights within the breast, can overlap and cause confusion when viewed as a 2-dimensional, flat image. This confusion of overlapping tissue is a leading reason why small breast cancers may be missed and normal tissue may appear abnormal, leading to unnecessary callbacks.

Hologic – a world leader in digital mammography – has developed an advanced technology called breast tomosynthesis, which has been shown in clinical studies to be superior to digital mammography.