Objective AI breast analytics software helps WVU Medicine deliver personalized health with high quality mammograms
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Building on its long-standing commitment to the early detection of breast cancer, WVU Medicine and the WVU Cancer Institute recently initiated a system-wide implementation of a suite of AI-based breast imaging software tools designed to help deliver high-quality, personalized breast cancer screening to every patient.
The Volpara Analytics™ software provides WVU Medicine the ability to maintain and improve mammographic quality for more than 100,000 annual mammograms at 24 facilities across West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
Volpara Analytics software provides automated and objective assessment of image quality
on every mammogram. The exclusive TruPGMI™ algorithm objectively assesses
technologists’ patient positioning and resulting image quality and provides technologists with
performance feedback. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) attributes poor positioning as the cause of most clinical image deficiencies and most failures of accreditation.
WVU Medicine provides a comprehensive, all in-one breast care program that provides expert care, educational tools, and technology all aimed at the prevention, early detection, and treatment of breast cancer.
“The clinical Radiology leadership across the System believes in offering the best breast screening and imaging technologies to maintain the ability to detect breast cancer as early as possible. Volpara Analytics gives us the ability to monitor the quality of every mammogram we perform to ensure every patient receives consistent and high-quality screening mammograms,” Amanda Pechatsko, clinical administrator in the WVU Medicine Department of Radiology at J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital, said. “This is an invaluable tool to advance and maintain quality system wide.”
Approximately 50 percent of women of screening age have dense breasts. High breast density is an important independent risk factor for developing breast cancer, and cancer can hide in dense breasts. WVU Medicine also uses the Volpara Scorecard to help overcome the limitations of mammography to detect cancer in women with dense breasts. Cleared by the FDA, the Volpara Scorecard is used by radiologists to objectively estimate a woman’s amount of breast density, either from 2D or 3D mammogram images, and help identify those who might benefit from additional screening.
“My ability to detect breast cancer is limited by the quality of the mammogram images that we, as a breast imaging facility, acquire,” Cimmie Shahan, M.D., section chief of breast imaging in the WVU Department of Radiology, said. “We are proud of the quality breast care we already provide women of West Virginia and the surrounding region, but to maintain that quality – and even improve – we must utilize objective feedback on the quality of every mammogram performed to inform future training and exceed our quality goals.”
For more information on WVU Medicine, visit WVUMedicine.org.