Outpatient mammography moved to Baptist Imaging Center
Michelle Peppers can testify to the importance of mammograms.
Peppers, 42, of Paducah, was one week shy of her 40th birthday when a mammogram revealed cancer in her right breast. She had no family history of the disease.
“I woke up with pain shooting through my right breast and found the mass,” she said.
After a mammogram and other tests at Western Baptist, she began treatment for breast cancer. Everyone at Western Baptist “was so sweet to me,” she said.
Two years later, Peppers made the tough decision to have both breasts removed after a routine mammogram showed a potential problem, again in the right breast. “They really didn’t think it was anything, but it might have been, and it just really bothered me,” she said. “I felt like, ‘I’m just now getting back to normal. I don’t want to go through that again.’ So I just decided to go ahead and get it taken care of.”
One in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. It is the most common cancer in women and the second leading cause of cancer death after lung cancer. Because early detection improves survival rates, the American Cancer Society recommends annual mammograms beginning at 40, or earlier if there is a family history of breast cancer.
“Many women with breast cancer live many years and lead productive lives,” said Dr. Daniel Howard, M.D., Peppers’ general surgeon. “Progress in imaging, digital mammography and MRI, combined with individualized therapies – based on genetic profiling – and surgery that improves a women’s appearance, have the potential to change breast cancer as we know it.”
Outpatient digital mammography has moved to the expanded Baptist Imaging Center at 2705 Kentucky Ave. The public is invited to tour the center during an open house from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, June 4. The center is located next to Western Baptist Hospital, with a separate entrance and designated parking near 28th and Kentucky Avenue.
Five technologists, with a combined experience totaling 112 years, perform more than 650 mammograms each month in the new mammography suite, which features a spa-like atmosphere and art work by local breast cancer survivors.
Other services included in the $9.2 million expansion are MRI, PET, CT, ultrasound and nuclear medicine. Patients can expect same-day results from radiologists on-site.
Western Baptist’s radiology services are accredited by the American College of Radiology, and the hospital has been designated a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence, a distinction awarded to just the top 3 percent in the nation. Breast imaging services are fully accredited in mammography, stereotactic breast biopsy, breast ultrasound and ultrasound-guided breast biopsy.