Abstract
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Objectives As part of a project to evaluate Positron Emission Mammography (PEM) in screening high risk women, we surveyed women with regards to their PEM imaging experience as compared to their recent experience with mammography.
Methods Two hundred and thirty-five women who presented to screening mammography volunteered for the study. Eighty-one women met the inclusion criteria - denied breast cancer in the past 5 years, recent breast disease, diabetes, pregnancy, or cup size E or larger; and described themselves as either Caucasian, Haitian Creole, African-American, or Hispanic. Within 10 days of their mammogram, ten minute emission PEM scans (CC and MLO views) were done 90-minutes after injection of 10mCi of 18-FDG. They then completed a questionnaire to assess their experience of both imaging modalities. The results were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed rank test for paired data. We tested the null hypothesis of zero median difference in a two tailed-test using p=0.05 for level of significance.
Results Of the 81 eligible patients, 63 women (average age 51.4 years; age range 40.8-77.0) completed the study and 18 declined to participate after consenting to the study. The cohort included 28 Caucasians, 33 African-Americans, and 2 Hispanics. Seventy-three percent of women felt satisfied with their PEM imaging experience while only 60% of women felt this way about mammography (p=0.09), a trend in favor of PEM imaging. Seventy-eight percent of women felt that PEM was not painful while only 40% of women felt the same way about mammography (p<0.001). Forty-four percent of women felt the PEM took too long, as opposed to 14% of women feeling this way about their mammogram (p<0.001).
Conclusions In our cohort, women had no particular preference between mammography or PEM imaging. They liked the quick experience of screening mammography but preferred the more gentle immobilization used in PEM imaging.
Research Support Department of Defense USA Grant: W81XWH-06-1-030