Loleta Carpenter coordinates mammovan services, and drives too.
New stats indicate that the mammovan operated by UCSF and San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center (SFGHMC) since 2002 is doing a good job of providing breast cancer screening to the medically underserved.
Poor and minority women are less likely than others to receive potentially lifesaving breast cancer screening. But 50 percent of women screened in the mammovan have been Asian or Pacific Islander, 20 percent have been Latina, 20 percent have been African American, and 5 percent have been Russian or Eastern European.
Ninety percent have been uninsured and low-income or unemployed. About 1,400 women per year are screened in the mammovan, which travels to neighborhood clinics.
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Loleta Carpenter |
Unlike many others, the SFGHMC-based mammovan incorporates a digital system - the General Electric FFDM Senographe 2000D. Breast images are recorded in the computer instead of on X-ray film.
Caregivers know immediately whether images are adequate, so that women don't have to make a return trip to be rescreened because of poor X-ray quality.
A major study published on Oct. 27, 2005, in the
New England Journal of Medicine concluded that the new digital mammography technology is as good as X-ray mammography at detecting tumors. And for some women - those under 50, women with dense breasts, and premenopausal or perimenopausal women - digital mammography may be more accurate.
Mammovan services are available to the underserved in San Francisco, thanks to a public-private partnership between San Francisco's Department of Public Health, UCSF and private foundations including Avon Foundation, St. Joseph's Foundation and the Oakland A's.
The mammovan serves Chinatown Public Health Center, Southeast Health Center, Potrero Hill Health Center, Maxine Hall Health Center, Saint Anthony Free Medical Clinic, San Francisco Free Clinic, St. Mary's Medical Center and Native American Health Center.
Related Links:
"Diagnostic Performance of Digital versus Film Mammography for Breast-Cancer Screening"
Etta D. Pisano, M.D., Constantine Gatsonis, Ph.D., Edward Hendrick, Ph.D., Martin Yaffe, Ph.D., Janet K. Baum, M.D., Suddhasatta Acharyya, Ph.D., Emily F. Conant, M.D., Laurie L. Fajardo, M.D., Lawrence Bassett, M.D., Carl D'Orsi, M.D., Roberta Jong, M.D., Murray Rebner, M.D., for the Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST) Investigators Group
New England Journal of Medicine
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Full Text | Full
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New Support Ensures Operation of Mammovan at SFGHMC
UCSF Today, July 6, 2004
