Remote Patient Management in a Mammographic Screening Environment in Underserved Areas

Early detection of breast cancer is of significant interest to our society. Mammographic screening is gradually moving toward a distributed acquisition - centralized review approach. Unfortunately, a relatively high recall rate using this approach increases patient anxiety as well as the cost and complexity of the diagnostic process. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the possible impact of a unique telemammography system that utilizes common carriers with wavelet-based data compression for image transmission, on recall rate in remote locations where physicians are not available during mammographic procedures. The initial phase of the project will encompass the design, assembly, and technical testing of a multi-site telemammography system that enables the digitization, transmission, and display of wavelet compressed images as well as associated text documents of a case in approximately 15 minutes. The impact of such a system with and without the incorporation of CAD results will be evaluated in a multi-site study at a later stage.