GE Healthcare, based in Waukesha, Wis., recently announced the first U.S. installation of Senographe Pristina in an outpatient imaging center, at SimonMed’s Thunderbird location in Glendale, Ariz. Senographe Pristina is next-generation mammography technology designed to deliver a more comfortable mammography experience for women.
“Senographe Pristina is another new, amazing technology from GE Healthcare with its focus on improved patient experience will help us get better results for patients,” says John Simon, MD, founder and CEO of SimonMed. “The quicker and more comfortable exam leads to accurate diagnoses, and also helps us to get better compliance with patients as they are less fearful of the mammographic exam. This technology complements our GE Automated Breast Ultrasound systems (ABUS), which are critical, new tools in diagnosing early breast cancer, particularly in women with dense breasts.”
Senographe Pristina was designed to completely revolutionize the patient experience to make it more comfortable. The gentle, rounded corners of the bucky, where the breasts are positioned, help reduce patient discomfort. Instead of requiring women to use conventional handgrips, which may cause tensing of pectoral muscles, making it hard to acquire pristine images, they can lean comfortably on the armrests, relaxing their muscles to simplify positioning, compression, and image acquisition. By improving patient comfort, technologists can focus on precise positioning, potentially making the exam easier and faster.
SimonMed has a unique approach to breast health leveraging different imaging modalities to create a customized approach to screening, diagnosis, and treatment depending on the patient’s individual risk factors. SimonMed, one of the largest outpatient medical imaging providers, uses mammography, digital breast tomosynthesis, automated breast ultrasound equipment, and breast MR to help personalize the imaging and diagnosis for patients. The Invenia ABUS is designed to be a comfortable, non-ionizing alternative to other supplemental screening options for women with dense breast tissue. When used in addition to mammography, Invenia ABUS can improve breast cancer detection by 55 percent over mammography alone.
