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The Importance of Digital Mammography Services at Mecosta County Medical Center
Breast cancer. Everyone has experienced this disease first hand through the illness or death of someone important to them. For the survivors, breast cancer becomes a part of their lives forever. For those who lose their battle, the lives of those who loved them - their family, friends and communities - will never be the same.
Breast cancer killed 1,300 women in Michigan in 2008. That same year, the American Cancer Society reported that 26 percent of new cancer cases in women were breast cancer diagnoses. This study also revealed that breast cancer is the second highest cause of cancer-related death in women at15 percent which is exceeded only by lung cancer.
The good news is that breast cancer death rates have been declining since 1990. Early detection of this disease provides women with more treatment options, more time to consider these options, increased survival rates and improved post-diagnosis quality of life.
Digital mammography is the state-of-the-art technology for detecting breast cancer. Mecosta County Medical Center (MCMC) currently uses the traditional mammography system to complete more than 11,000 examinations annually. In the MCMC service region, Lake, Mecosta, Montcalm, Newaygo and Osceola counties, 109,443 women are over the age of 40 and require access to digital mammography to help monitor their breast health. As digital mammography is not available at MCMC, many women are choosing to have this important screening examination at other health care providers.
To meet the health care needs of the women in our service region, it is critical that this early detection technology be added to the diagnostic screening procedures for breast cancer at MCMC. Providing primary care physicians with state of the art digital imaging will enable them to deliver "advanced care with a personal touch."
The women of our community, our mothers and grandmothers, our daughters and sisters, the wives and friends, deserve the best in their efforts to fight breast cancer. Digital mammography will give women the advantage that the most accurate information about their condition offers. Fewer families and communities will lose the women that they love.
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