YAKIMA, Wash.-- Memorial Hospital in Yakima is making it easier for their doctors to detect and treat breast cancer.
They're investing in new digital mammography scanners. They're a significant upgrade from the previous machines, which were ten years old and still used film.
The new equipment will deliver more detailed scans and drop the radiation dosage by half. They'll also cut the procedure time from about an hour to 15 minutes.
"Doing this is just for the women in our community so they don't feel like they have to travel outside we're showing them that we care about them and we're giving them the highest state of the art technology," says Ohana Mammography Center Manager Nancy Roehr.
Memorial is already using one of the machines as a pre-surgery imager for patients already diagnosed with cancer.
They'll install two more for normal breast cancer screenings at their Ohana center later this year.
