Jul 08
19
3-D Mammograms?
I think we discussed this a few months back, but it’s been in the news again lately, how now mammograms are hopefully going to be a little bit more exact and efficient perhaps with a newer technology using 3-D or three dimensional glasses. Seeing in three dimension just means that you can see all angles of a person, or an object, in this case, the looker would be seeing any items of concern in the breast in three dimension, perhaps making it easier for them to identify and maybe even expediting the viewing process for mammograms and making them more effective. At least that’s the goal.
The whole point of inventing the three dimension mammograms is to help women with the denser breasts, because it’s harder to identify lumps or cancerous masses in women with dense breasts, and often an MRI must be ordered for women where the test results of a mammogram are inconclusive because of density in the tissue and resulting difficulty in identification of any areas of concern.
The way the three dimensional mammogram would work is that the radiologist would simply use specially designed 3-D glasses. I’m sure you’re picturing the type that you get to go to the movies, but I’m sure they’re a little more sophisticated than cheap cardboard 
 Just kidding. This would mean that women who ordinarily might have to have an expensive MRI to conclude whether they have any problem areas would just have to have this 3-D test done, which is much less expensive.
Since there are many women under the age of fifty years old that have dense breast tissue, and there are still a lot after that age as well, when breast cancer risk is higher, this is a great money saving and time saving measure, researchers are hoping, and could even help save lives if it can identify early cancers that might be missed with just a regular mammogram. All in all, this is some great news for women, and for women with dense breasts especially!
