Brisbane clinic offering new pain-free breast screen technology

Pain-free breast cancer CT scans are now being offered for the first time in Australia.

Conventional mammograms require compressing the breast which can be painful, particularly for women with dense breasts.

However, Cone Beam Breast CT offers a pain free alternative, and experts using it say it gives superior clarity, particularly for women with dense breasts.

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About a third of Australian women over 50 have dense breasts and about 25 per cent of women under the age of 50 have extremely dense breasts.

The new technology is approved by the FDA in the United States with registration pending in Australia.

Breast screening patient Belinda Yates got access through the TGA's special access scheme and said it's a completely different experience to mammograms.

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"Firstly there's no pain associated with the scan... there is no touching of your breast whatsoever," 46-year-old Yates said.

"This was advised as a good test for me to have to see a clearer picture."

Brisbane Radiology is the first clinic in Australia to use the technology after evaluating 10 years of research overseas.

"It is really great for detecting small lesions with women with dense breasts and with complex breasts," Dr Jacqueline Milne said.

"I honestly believe that this will change the paradigm for imaging in Australia, particularly for women with dense breasts."

A contrast dye injection gives even greater visibility.

"We wait two minutes and then the same scan is performed," she said.

The scans can also be used to plan surgery to conserve the breast.

"Women survive breast cancer now so we don't want to leave deformities," breast and endocrine surgeon Dr Ben Green said.

"So having clarity about what tissue I need to remove, what volume of defect will be behind and how I'll fill that can result in less surgery, less need to come back and have further operations," he said.

The emerging technology has an out of pocket cost of nearly $300 and is not part of the BreastScreen program, which provides free mammograms for women over 40.

But the national body today posted new guidelines recommending for the first time that women are notified about their breast density.

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Queensland, Tasmania and the territories are yet to roll out the reporting system.

Vicki Durston from the Breast Cancer Network wants all states and territories to adopt the standard.

"We know 2D mammography can reduce sensitivity down to 64 per cent - so we want to see for those at high risk or those with high breast density - have the options of supplementary screening that is available for all," Durston said.

A review by BreastScreen on the latest advances in screening technology is yet to be released.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing said: "At present, there is no consensus on the optimal screening pathway for those with increased mammographic density."

However authorities stress mammograms detect the majority of breast cancers in Australia and remain the technology for mass screening for women of all breast densities.

"Additional imaging tests are only available outside of the BreastScreen Australia program...and may incur out of pocket costs."

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